In a word surrounded by darkness, there is a voice that whispers to every young heart urging them to find the treasure of truth. [Music] Those who follow the path will discover eternal riches beyond their wildest dreams. Join us now for an "Amazing Adventure, a journey for life with Jesus." Good evening, friends. Welcome to "Amazing Adventure, a journey for life with Jesus." My name is jean ross. I'll be your host for this Bible study experience.
I'd like to welcome all of those who are watching around the country and around the world. This evening's study is entitled "the treasure map." And there is a lesson that goes along with this presentation. For those of you who are watching, you can get more information on the study material at the "Amazing Facts kids" website. And we're going to hand this out at the end of the program. You can go home, fill in the answers, bring back the answers.
And at the end of the program, you will receive one of these beautiful children's Bible. And those of you who are watching, if you'd like more information about these children Bibles put together by review & herald, go to the "Amazing Facts kids" website and you'll be able to get more information on that as well. Well, friends, we believe in prayer. And here at our local site in Texas, we're going to be praying there is somebody who wants to come to this program but is not invited. His name is ike.
Well, ike's not a real person. He's actually a hurricane. We have a hurricane that's brewing in the gulf, making its way towards the coast and probably tomorrow, we will begin to feel the winds and the rain from hurricane ike. Those of you who are watching, please pray for us. We're praying that there won't be a power outage, so we'll be able to do tomorrow's program.
We also would like to, at this time, invite our singers to come forward. We have a special theme song that we'll be singing throughout the program, the "Amazing Adventure" singers will lead us in our theme song. Please stand. Let's sing. Life is an adventure following the King.
Every day with Jesus makes us want to sing. Walking in the Spirit, he will lead the way. With His Word to guide us, glowing deep inside us, nothing can divide us, following the King. Life is an adventure following the King. Every day with Jesus makes us want to sing.
Conquering with kindness everywhere we go. Voices we are raising, Jesus are praising, life is so amazing, following the King. Life is so amazing, following the King. Now some of you are hearing this for the first time and if you want to learn a new song, you've got to sing it a couple of times. And since this is short, why don't we do that one more time? Would that be okay, kelly? [Music] life is an adventure following the King.
Every day with Jesus makes us want to sing. Walking in the Spirit, he will lead the way. With His Word to guide us, glowing deep inside us, nothing can divide us, following the King. Life is an adventure following the King. Every day with Jesus makes us want to sing.
Conquering with kindness everywhere we go. Voices we are raising, Jesus are praising, life is so amazing, following the King. Life is so amazing, following the King. Please remain standing as we have our Scripture reading this evening. If you look in front of you, you will see a Bible in the pew.
You can take out that Bible and turn to psalm 119:105. And manasseh emmanuel will be reading our Scripture reading for us tonight. "Your Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." Read that one more time for us. "Your Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." Thank you very much. I'm going to ask you to bow your heads for prayer as asherah brings us our prayer.
Bow your heads as we pray. Dear God, thank you that the people that are here were able to get here safely. Please help us to understand and learn more about you. In Jesus' Name. Amen.
Amen. Well, I'd like to welcome our speaker, Pastor Doug Batchelor, president of "Amazing Facts." Pastor Doug, we are so excited about this. I know we've been working on this program for quite a while and it's finally here. You can sit down. Oh, that's right.
They don't have to stand through the whole program. You're a very obedient group. Thank you. Alright well, let's take a few Bible questions as we get started in the program tonight. Part of each program, we're going to give you an opportunity to ask questions about the Bible.
We're beginning the most important adventure in life. This adventure, successful, leads to eternity. And so, nothing can be more important than that. And so, we want to encourage all of our friends who are here at our local church and all of our friends who are watching around the world, if you've got questions about the Bible or about God, we'd encourage you to send 'em in. We've got a few that've been prerecorded for the first night's program from Sacramento.
And we want to give you an opportunity. Some of you might e-mail a picture of yourself with a question. If they've got the technology, maybe they could even send a little video real quick. They know how to do that on youtube. And we want to get your Bible questions.
But tonight, I think we're priming the pump a little bit because we've got a few prepared. We do. We have two video questions this evening. So if all the equipment works correctly, we'll roll that question right now. Alright.
Where is the original Bible? Okay, that's nathaniel in Sacramento is asking where is the original Bible? This whole program tonight is about the Bible. And it's "the amazing treasure map." That's our study for tonight. Someone might want to know where's the original Bible? Well, the Bible originally was given by voice. It was the word spoken by God to adam and eve. And then, adam and eve passed it on to their children.
Do you know adam probably had a photographic memory? He could remember everything. But as man began to get weaker because of sin, his memory started being affected by that. And pretty soon, they began to write it down. Do you know some of the first of the Bible that was written down was written by God when he wrote the Ten Commandments? And Moses wrote, of course, the books of Genesis and Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Do you know--you see that Bible we got here on the stage? Anyone want to guess how old that Bible is? Go ahead.
You call out. What's your guess? Two-thousand. No, it's not quite 2,000 years old. But it's almost 200 years old. This Bible is 1816.
1812. Oh, 1812, that's still almost 200 years old, 190. But anyway, the Bible's been around a long time, 1,500 years. But we'll talk more about that in our lesson tonight. Alright well, Pastor Doug, I've got a Bible question for you.
Here it is. Now wait, how old are you? Can I sneak in? I'm 12--i can get in. Alright, here's the Bible question: what is the best way to read and study the Bible? That's a very important question. Let me see how many of you have a Bible at home? Our friends that are watching, I hope you all have got Bibles. Most of you, look at that, most of you kids have Bibles at home.
That's right. Very good. Did some of you bring your own Bibles tonight? Good for you. And we hope you're bringing your Bibles to the meetings. We're very thankful review & herald provided some Bibles here for our local meeting so the kids that come at least 7 nights, you get to take that Bible home with you at the end of the meetings.
Okay, so you've got to attend. What was the question again? Oh, the best way to study the Bible, that's right. The best way to study the Bible is start little by little. You might begin in the beginning with Genesis. And if you find out that it gets a little bit difficult sometimes, you can jump to what they call the "new testament.
" The Bible's divided in a couple of parts here. Three-quarters of the Bible is the old testament. The new testament begins right about here. This is the part of the Bible written before Jesus was born, the old testament. The new testament was written after Jesus was born.
And so you can also go to the new testament and read about the life of Jesus, when God became a man. If you can't read a lot all at once, start with little verses. The best way to get a good beginning in Bible study is to have a Bible, of course, and use the study guides that go with the series. That'll really help you. Alright well, Pastor Doug, I think we have another video question for this evening, so we're ready for that.
Did the miracles in the Bible really happen? Okay. Chenille from Sacramento is asking did the miracles in the Bible really happen? Let me ask you what you think; how many of you think that the miracles in the Bible are true? Oh, I knew we had a faithful crowd here tonight. You're absolutely right. The miracles in the Bible are true. And you know, God still performs miracles today.
Did you know that? Everybody alive is a miracle. Life is a miracle. We're surrounded with miracles all the time. But I believe in all the miracles of the Bible. I really believe that Jesus walked on water.
I believe that he could raise the dead, that he could heal the sick. I believe that Moses, when he stretched out his rod, that the sea parted. And all these miracles really happened. You're going to be hearing more about this. By the way, we're praying for a miracle right now at this series of meetings, that the Lord will bless these meetings.
A thousand things have to work together, that he'll bless the weather for our friends who are watching in all different parts of the country and that God will pour out our spirit. I think we're going to see some miracles. Amen. We believe so. Well Pastor Doug, we have a special music at this time.
I'm going to invite the "Amazing Adventure" singers to come forward, and you'll get to know this group quite a bit over the next few nights together as we sing. The Song that they'll be sharing with us is "from a child." [Music] from a child, from a child, thou hast known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise, wise unto salvation, salvation through faith, faith which is in Christ Jesus. From a child, from a child, thou hast known the holy Scriptures. From a child, thou hast known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise. From a child, from a child, thou hast known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise, wise unto salvation, salvation through faith, faith which is in Christ Jesus.
From a child, from a child, thou hast known the holy Scriptures. Amen. Thank you very much. That's a perfect song for tonight 'cause we're talking tonight about the Bible, "the treasure map." Now this series, "Amazing Adventure," is talking about the most important thing in life. Life is an adventure.
It's the adventure of learning how to follow Jesus and getting to that city of gold. In order to make the trip, you need a map. And so, we're going to talk about that map. And I want to remind our friends that are here and our friends that are watching because this is the first program. We've got ten programs dealing with this "Amazing Adventure.
" You can bring your friends to come. It's still not too late to invite your friends, right? Maybe you have some friends at school or in your neighborhood that you'd like to talk to and say, "wow, we're having a great program at this home or this church." Invite 'em because you want them to find that city of gold that we're all going to. Well tonight, we're going to talk about the lesson number one, "the treasure map." How many of you have ever looked for treasure before? You ever find--yeah! I used to go digging in my dad's backyard. We dug a tunnel one time, looking for treasure. Of course, I don't know why.
We just dug in the hillside. We never did find anything, but it was fun looking for the treasure. A lot of people pretend that they've got treasure maps and they're just not real. But some people have found real treasures in history. Back in 1947, some boys living in the land of Israel were looking for a lost goat.
And they saw a little cave up against the hillside and they took a rock and they threw a rock up in the cave, just wondering if their goat had wandered in there. And they heard a breaking sound like breaking glass. So, they scrambled up to the cave and they looked in there and they saw that there were some jars. And in the jars were a bunch of scrolls, and they could see they were very old scrolls. They thought, "wow, this is like a treasure.
Nobody's been in this cave for maybe 1,000 years." It was actually more than 1,000 years. And so what they did is they said, "let's take some of these scrolls down and let's take 'em to Bethlehem. Sell 'em and see what they're worth." They sold some of them for $30. Do you know how much they were worth? Way more than $30 million. They had found the dead sea scrolls.
It was the oldest segments of the Bible in existence. These boys out there looking for goats found treasure, and they didn't even know what they found. You know, the Bible is a treasure. And the most important thing I want to share with you tonight is that you can know how to live forever because if you follow this map of the Bible, this map will tell you how to get to God's kingdom. It'll guide you through this life.
It gives you everything you need for happiness and eternal life. Now in our study, we're going to be going through the lesson and we're going to do it in like a question-answer format. So, I'm going to go right to the lesson. Let's look at question number one: someone might've told you that the Bible is just a fairytale. Any of you ever hear that? "Oh, you can't believe the Bible.
It's just fables, fairytales." But can we trust that the Bible is true? How do we know we can trust the Bible is true? What does the Bible say about itself? If you've got your Bibles, you can look these verses up. As a matter of fact, we'll be giving you a lesson here after the program. In the Bible, it says, "all Scripture," how much? "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." That's 2 Timothy 3:16. The whole Bible is a message from God to you. Any of you ever get a letter in the mail? You're excited to get a letter in the mail.
You want to open it up. You wonder what it is. And sometimes, our son, nathan, he gets a lego magazine in the mail. He's so excited about that magazine. He pours over it.
He takes it up, goes to bed with it and he'll be here later in this series. You'll see mrs. Batchelor and two of the Batchelor boys. What if you had a letter from God? How valuable would that be? The Bible is a love letter from God to you. And you know, it's especially interesting now because right now, you and I can buy Bibles and we've got the whole Word of God.
They used to have to carry around all these camels. I remember reading one time about the grand vizier of persia. He had a library with about 400,000 books in it. And he had hundreds of camels that carried his library with him wherever he went, hundreds of camels to carry his library. Now, you can put it all on a little laptop computer.
We're lucky to have all of the Word of God together for us to study. First book ever printed on a printing press was the Bible. That was by johann gutenberg in 1456. Up 'til then, they used to have to write the Bibles down by hand. And the Bible's written on paper, of course, and that's where you get the word-- "paper" comes from "papyrus.
" It came from an ancient phoenician city called "biblos." And they made so many books out of the papyrus in biblos that they started saying, "well that's a book." And "book" or "biblos" meant a collection of books. And so, we get the word "Bible." It's a latin word that means it's a collection of books. The Bible has got a lot of books in it that tell about God and our relationship with him. And so, that's a little bit of the history. I told you they used to print by hand, and then they were able to do it on a printing press.
And now Bibles, it's the number one book being printed in the world today. It's the bestseller in history. And some countries, they're not allowed to read the Bible. Mrs. Batchelor and I once went to russia, and we gave away hundreds of Bibles there.
And the people were so excited 'cause they hadn't been able to read the Bible in 70 years. And they were stroking and petting the Bible. One of the most valuable Bibles is the first Bible printed on a printing press, which was the gutenberg Bible. And I think I've got a picture of that right there on the screen for you. How much do you think that would be worth? It'd be valuable.
But you know, it wouldn't be worth as much to you because you can't read german, I don't think, most of you. Some of our viewers can. But you can read the real Bible in english or your Bibles in english. And so, take advantage of this precious book. You know, right now they're having a presidential election.
When the president is elected and he's voted into office, he places his hand on what book? The Bible. And he makes a vow. It's such a sacred book and it's got this history that goes back for hundreds of years. The Bible is the map that tells us about life. It tells us how to follow Jesus and where to go.
Now you know, more and more of the cars have something very special. During our series, every now and then, we're going to take a look in our mystery chest. This up here is a mystery chest. We're going to have some surprises in here. Night after night, I'm going to grab something out of here, out of the mystery chest here for a second.
Let's see what we've got going on in here. Who knows what this is? This is a gps. And my gps here-- let me see how I turn it on. It looks like the batteries have gone out on me. When you first turn this thing on, what it does is it says it's "acquiring satellites.
" How many of you have cars, you know, that've got gps in them? Now when I travel, I take one with me. And then it's got a map. But before you can use the map on the gps, it's got to get satellites. It's not just one or two. It needs three or four.
The more you have the better. When you're trying to figure out what the truth is, you don't just read one verse in the Bible to find out what God wants. Some people confuse the Bible by just reading one verse all by itself. You compare the Scriptures in the Bible and it guides you like a map and gives you the right direction that you should go. Someone once said that the word "Bible," b-i-b-l-e, it stands for--it's an acronym, that means the words represent something else: "basic instructions before leaving earth.
" Can you say that with me? "Basic instructions before leaving earth." How many of you want to leave earth and go to heaven? The Bible is your instruction book so you can know how you get out of this world into the next one. And you want to be able to compare the verses in the Bible so you can arrive at the truth. One time when Jesus was being tempted by the devil, the devil misquoted the Bible to him to cause confusion. And so, you've got to know the Bible because sometimes the devil will try and trick you and misquote it. Let me give you an example of that.
I might need a volunteer. Come up here for a second, right there, Joel. You're in the front row, so you got picked. You didn't know I was going to do this, did you? You look like a stout boy. So, I want you to do something for me.
Alright, fold your arms, spread your legs a little bit. Okay, I'm going to try and push you over with my finger. Don't let me push you over, okay? How old are you? Eleven. He's pretty strong for 11. Okay, pretty tough, can't push him over with one finger.
I don't know if I can push him over with my hand. Alright, now lift up one leg. Hold it up. See how easy that is. Thank you very much.
And you know why I said that? When you're discovering what the truth is, you don't want just one verse of the Scripture. How much stronger and more stable are you with two feet than one foot? So, read the different verses in the Bible and it starts you to--help you understand what the truth is. Let's go to our next question in our lesson. Question number two: how can you know for yourself that the Bible is true? Oh, maybe some preachers say it. Your mom and dad hopefully tell you that.
But how can you know that the Bible is true? There's a verse that says in psalm 34:8, "oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!" Alright, I'm going to bring up another volunteer and I've already asked nathan if he'd come up here for a second. And this is nathan nedley here. You stand right here, nathan. I'm going--are you getting hungry, nathan? I'm just wondering. Sure.
You a little hungry? Yeah. Well, you might get something to eat. Let me see here. You're not allergic to anything. This is this sock.
I want you to know there's nothing wrong with this sock. It's been at the bottom of my laundry hamper for 2 years, and I know that it's fine, okay? Can you see anything? No. How's your smeller work? I think, good. What do you smell? An apple. An apple.
Okay, just checking. Hang on a second now. How much do you trust me to open your mouth? I'm going to put something in there. It's a piece of fruit. Are you allergic? Do you have any food allergies? No.
Okay, go ahead and bite down. Chew that up. That'll be good for you. What was that? A grape. A grape, you know.
How do you know that was a grape? Now, let me show you something. That apple that you just smelled a second ago, isn't that what he smelled? The grape that you ate, you could tell the difference between the grape and the banana because you tasted it for yourself, right? Thank you. Let's give him a hand. Thank him for his help. [Applauding] So, how are we going to know that the Bible is true? We've got to read it for ourselves.
I didn't grow up reading the Bible and I had to eventually read it for myself to find that out. Question number three: does God foretell the future in the Bible? Wouldn't you like to know what the future is? Listen to what it says in Isaiah 46:9-10; God says, "I am God, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done." God sees all of history together, and he tells the future many times in the Bible. The Bible is filled with incredible prophecies. Let me give you some examples. God told Noah that there was going to be a tremendous flood coming.
And some people didn't listen. A lot of people didn't listen. And they suffered because of that. Right now while we're doing this meeting, there's a lot of things happening in the news that have to do with weather, right? And people who have satellite cameras up in the sky, up in the heavens, are looking down and they see this great hurricane heading towards the Texas coast. And the people get on the radio and they tell 'em in the newspaper, "there is a serious storm coming.
You need to move." And just before I came to the program, they said on the news a lot of people aren't moving. Now those folks who are looking from the cameras in the sky, they're not using prophecy, they're using cameras in the sky. They can see what's coming because of their perspective. How much does God know? He knows everything. And in the Bible, he often outlines the history of the world.
Do you know Jesus foretold? He said in 40 years from a.d. 30, He said in 40 years the Jewish temple would be destroyed. There would not be one stone left upon another. In exactly 40 years later, the Romans came and completely destroyed the temple and they did not leave 2 stones, one on top of the other. the Lord foretells so many things in the Bible.
As a matter of fact, I'm going to need one more volunteer here. Let me see who I might get. Young lady, right up here, what's your name? Jillian. Jillian, alright. Tell you what, you want to look in the mystery box and see if there's a statue in there.
Grab that for me. You can pick 'em right up. That's ivan the idol. Maybe we'll call 'em "ike." Okay, there's a dream that Daniel has in Daniel chapter 2. King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream of this strange idol 'cause all the nations of the world were worshipping idols except the jews back then.
And it had a head of gold and arms of silver and a belly of bronze and legs of iron and the feet were iron and clay. And the King didn't know what the dream meant. So, he called for the prophet Daniel, finally. He tried his prophets, but they didn't know. But the prophet of God came in and he said, "that dream that you saw outlines the history of the world," from the time of king Nebuchadnezzar to the end of time.
And he said, "the head of gold represented the Kingdom of Babylon." I remember reading about that when I was in school. And then, "the arms of silver," the persian kingdom, medo-persia would come. And "the belly and thighs of bronze" represented the Kingdom of greece, and then greece would fall to the Romans and they were "the legs of iron." And "the feet were mixed iron and mixed clay," that was when the roman empire fell apart and got mixed up with religion and romanism. And the divided empire of rome is where we're living today. And then a stone comes and strikes the image and destroys all the idols and false religions, grows into a great mountain and fills the earth, that's the second coming of Jesus.
Everything that Daniel said in the prophecy happened in the history books, and he foretold it long before it happened. The next thing to happen is that stone, Jesus, the rock of ages, coming. I've got a rock right here. And it's going to come down. It's going to hit this and it pulverizes the image, it blows away and the rock grows into a great mountain and fills the whole earth.
God foretold that everything in the prophecy happened so far. How many of you believe the last part's going to happen where Jesus comes? I believe that too. Thank you very much for your help, holding ike for me. Alright so, the prophecies do come true. What about science? Number four: does science support the Bible? That it's true.
I believe true science really does support the Bible that it's true. For instance, let me give you some examples. You can read in job 26:7, "he hangs the earth upon nothing." Long time ago, one of the first books in the Bible was the book of job. When you look at the book of job, first time I read it I thought it said "job" 'cause I didn't grow up reading the Bible. It's spelled j-o-b.
But you don't call him job, you call him "job." And the book of job says, "God hangs the earth on nothing." Well you know, back when job wrote that, many of the nations of the world had all these strange superstitions. They thought that the world rested on the back of a giant tortoise. They thought that the world rested on the shoulders of a man named atlas. They had all these superstitions. But the Bible said, "no, the world hangs on nothing.
" And when you look at a picture of earth in space, the Bible knew that way back then, that the world hung on nothing. You could also look in Isaiah 40:22. There it says, "he sits above the circle of the earth." Now you remember the story of Christopher columbus? How many of you have read about Christopher columbus? Did some people think that Christopher columbus was a little bit crazy? You know why? 'Cause he said, "I believe that I can get from the west to the east by sailing west." And he went and he said, "the world is round." They said, "oh, everybody knows, science knows the world is flat. You sail too far, you're going to sail off this great, big ol' waterfall and dragons'll get you." They had all these superstitions that the world was a big, square, flat place, like a table. And the Bible said a long time ago that the earth was round, that it was a circle.
And so all through the Bible, you'll find out that the science in the Bible is true. You know, back in the dark ages, some people were very superstitious about cats. And they got rid of all the cats. They said, "cats are evil. They're with witches.
They're from the devil." And they started killing all the cats in europe. But you know what happened when there's no cats around? Who knows? Mice and rats. And the mice and the rats began to multiply and spread everywhere and they carried these little bitty fleas. Bubonic disease was on these fleas. And people got something called "the bubonic plague," and they all started dying from this terrible sickness.
And they didn't know what to do to stop it. And finally, some of the church leaders looked in the Bible and they read what it said in the book of Leviticus about sanitation and containment. And the science from the Bible is what finally stopped the bubonic plague from spreading. So, the Bible is full of very accurate science. Let's go to question number five: does the message in the Bible all fit together? You know what's amazing about the Bible is that it was written by about 40 different authors.
But these were not just average people. You can read in 2 Peter 1:21, "holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." These holy men were inspired by the Holy Spirit, and they wrote what God told them to write. And even though these men wrote from so many different times in history over a period of 1,500 years, they lived on 3 different continents. Some of them were poor shepherds like king David. Some of them were educated like the apostle Paul.
From all different backgrounds, and yet when you read the Bible, the message is all united. It's like someone said one time, "the Bible is many miracles. One miracle is it is miraculous in its harmony." It's got the same consistent message about God and his love for you. The Bible is miraculous in its origin. Do you know there's several times in history that people have tried to destroy the Bible? Some people have burned them.
Mountains of Bibles, they've burned them, they've tried to destroy the scrolls. Emperors of rome and Kings of europe have tried to stamp out the Bible and yet God has preserved this book. That's why we should be very careful to respect the Bible. Let me stop right here and say something. You know, when I'm doing my program, you'll notice I never set anything on my Bible because the Bible's a holy book.
And in the Batchelor home, we treat the Bible with respect. We don't stuff it at the bottom of a bunch of magazines and throw the tv guide on top of it. Something just doesn't sound right about that, does it? We treat this Bible-- this is the most important sacred book in the world. Remember those boys, when they found the scrolls in the cave, they were worth millions. I've been to the museum where they've got the dead sea scrolls, and they've got this great big, 3 1/2-foot concrete iron, reinforced vault over these scrolls.
It's protecting the Bible 'cause it's the most important treasure in Israel. So, we should treat our Bibles respectfully. When you turn the pages, you want to be careful to turn 'em carefully. This is a sacred book 'cause it's the voice of God to you and me. The Bible is miraculous in its accuracy.
It's amazing as you go from cover to cover in the Bible that it never misdirects you. You know, I got one of these little gpss in my car. Gpss are really great, but they are computers. And sometimes, computers are dumb. And sometimes, I'm following the gps and it's telling me to go somewhere but the gps doesn't know that the road is closed because of construction or stuff like that.
And it doesn't know. But God, he knows everything all the time. His computer never goes down, does it? So, it's miraculous in its message as well. The message of the Bible is about God's love for you and how he came to save us from our sins, to give us new hearts, to transform us to be like his son. The miracles in the Bible are true.
It's the most powerful book in the world. And I'm going to be telling a little bit tomorrow night about how you can use the power of the Bible by reading it and by memorizing the Scripture. I want to encourage you every night to remember some of the Bible. Who remembers what verse did we read tonight as our opening Scripture? A memory verse. I know that he read it.
So no, you're cheating, you read it, you know it. Someone else? You know what it was? "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path," Psalms 119:105. Could you say that with me? "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path," Psalms 119:105. That is a very important verse for you to remember 'cause God's Word is going to guide you. Number six, still in our lesson: what's one of the greatest proofs that the Bible is true? What's some of the most powerful evidence that we can trust the Bible? In 2 Corinthians 5:17, it says, "therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
" He becomes a new creature. "Old things have passed away; all things are become new." God makes us new creatures. You know, the greatest evidence in the Bible is how the Lord changes lives. You know, one reason that I'm sharing this seminar with you, and this is so important to me, and this topic tonight is so important to me is when I grew up, my mom and my dad, they didn't take me to church. I knew very little about the Bible.
And I got into lots of trouble because I didn't have the map. And when you don't have a map and you don't have a gps, what happens? You get lost. Can you find the treasure? No, and I was finding everything but the treasure. As a matter of fact, here's a little picture. I grabbed the picture today of me is when I went to military school when I was about 12 years old, about the age of you folks.
Anyone here 12 years old? Let me see your hands. Yeah, we got a lot of 12-year-olds here. And do you know I went to 14 different schools growing up? A lot of the reason was because I was getting in trouble. My parents moved a little bit, but I went to school in Maine. I went to school in California.
I went to school in New York. I went to school in florida. I went to school in europe, plus various public schools and catholic schools and Jewish schools. And I was all mixed up. Life didn't have any purpose for me.
I didn't know about Jesus and his love. And so I thought, like a lot of people in the world, "you live a little while and then you die," and I believed in evolution, "and then you just turn into fertilizer when you die." And I thought, "you know, life doesn't bring very much happiness. What's the purpose of life?" So, I got into lots of trouble. Now, my father was a very wealthy man that owned two airlines. He lived on an island in miami beach, we had a butler and a maid.
Dad had a private leer jet, drove a rolls royce, had a lot of money, but he wasn't very happy. Every night, he had to drink alcohol to go to sleep, very unhappy. He didn't have God in his life. My mother thought happiness came from being famous. So, she was an actress.
She was in movies. She was a film critic. She wrote songs for people like andy williams and frank sinatra and elvis presley. And I don't know if you know any of those people. I'm getting old.
But she was a president of the film critics in beverly hills and knew all these famous people that came to our houses. But they weren't very happy. I know some of them who are child actors and everybody knew who they were, and they killed themselves. Rich, beautiful, smart but without God, they got lost and they didn't want to live anymore. And I used to think, "if there's no God, there's really no purpose in life.
" And so, when I lived in New York city, sometimes I'd climb up to the top of these tall apartment buildings. And I used to think, "all those people running around like ants down there, they have no purpose in life. Why don't I just jump and kill myself?" I did. I used to think about that. My dad was so busy with his work, and my mom was so busy with her career.
They didn't seem to have time for me. And I thought, "I don't even want to live." And so, I used to go to the top of these apartment buildings and I'd put my toe over the edge and I'd look down 20 stories. And I'd go like this. I'd see how far out I could go like I'm doing right now until I felt my center of gravity, and I'd stop myself. You know what I was afraid of? I didn't jump because I thought, "what if I jump and I live through it and I'm all broken up and sick?" I didn't want to do that.
And sometimes, I used to think, "well maybe if I just took pills. I'd just take a whole lot of pills and go to sleep and never wake up. Nobody will know." Now, let me tell you something. You know what they call that? Suicide. That's really murder.
It's when you murder yourself. Is murder a sin? Yeah. Murdering yourself is a sin too. Did you make yourself? You're created by God. You're his property.
And some people kill themselves because they think, "I just want my problems to go away." So, they kill themselves. But think about this: if a person dies and they're lost, what's the first thing they know after they die? They wake up, and they're facing a lake of fire. That's not very good. Does that solve their problems or do their problems get worse? When you're alive, there's hope. And so, don't ever get so discouraged you think about something crazy like that.
That's what the devil wants you to do. So I finally thought, "you know, I'm not going to take pills and I'm not going to jump. I'm just going to try and have as much fun as I can before I die." So, I started getting into all kinds of trouble. I started drinking. When I was with my dad, I drank.
And then, I started using alcohol and I started taking drugs and smoking pot. And when I lived with mom, a lot of the people in hollywood used drugs. And I was using drugs and I was getting into trouble. First time I ran away from home, I was 13 years old. I wanted to just go live in the mountains.
I got arrested. I was in jail several times and big trouble. By the time I was 15 years old, I'd left home for the last time. And I was living in boston. By the time I was 16, I had a driver's license that said I was 18 years old.
I was working as a security guard. And at night, I was breaking into homes and stealing. So here I had a job guarding places, during the night actually I was guarding things at night and I was stealing during the day, and I just wasn't very happy and I used all my money on drugs. And my father came to visit me and he said, "doug," he said, "why don't you go to this special school? I found this school, lots of adventure. It's on a boat.
It sails around the world." And that sounded pretty exciting. I've always wanted adventure. So, my dad flew me from boston, I was 16, to europe. And I went to a school that was on a sailboat, and there was a bunch of boys and girls on this boat. And it was like a high school, and they sailed around the world.
But then I found out he'd sort of tricked me. The boat was something like a prison. And they take away your passport, and they didn't let you go anywhere, and most of the people on the boat didn't believe in God. And I was thinking, "you know, there's just no purpose to life." And this didn't seem like much fun. But I noticed something.
One day, we were sailing from northern africa over to spain. It was wintertime. And during that trip, we got into a serious storm out on the ocean. And the boat was rocking back and forth, and the waves were like 25, 30 feet, just great big ol' waves. And waves were washing over the front of the boat.
And things were getting washed overboard, and the water was very cold 'cause it was around Christmastime. And the captain said, "if you fall overboard, we're not even going to turn the boat around because we'll never find you." And all the people on the boat said that they were atheists until they got in the storm, and they thought they were going to die. What do you think they started doing when they thought they were going to die? They started praying, and they started making promises to God, "oh Lord, if you'll just save me, help me get through the storm." And of course, we survived the storm. I wouldn't be here to tell you, would i? But God doesn't want us to serve him because we're afraid. Well, as soon as I got home for Christmas vacation, I ran away for the last time.
Now, I thought, "there must be a God. Too many amazing things happen." One quick story I'll tell you. I was hitchhiking. You know, you get on the road and you beg for a ride. I was hitchhiking from florida to California, like 4,000 miles.
I got stuck, it's still Christmastime, in Oklahoma, freezing cold weather. I stood on the road for hours, begging for a ride and nobody would pick me up. I got hungry. I was a little bit sick 'cause I'd been drinking the night before. Alcohol can make you sick.
And I prayed. And I didn't grow up really knowing how to pray. And I prayed and said, "Lord, I believe that there's a God there," 'cause I saw so many amazing things happen. I said, "will you please help me?" And I prayed that God would give me four things. I said, "please help me get some money.
" I had no money. "Help me get a ride to California." I had 2,000 miles still to go. I said, "Lord, please help me get some food." I was hungry. And then I prayed, "God, please help me get a ride with somebody normal" because I was getting picked up by very strange people. As soon as I finished praying, a van stopped and picked me up.
The man took me 2,000 miles right to the door of where I was going. He fed me all the way out to California. I didn't ask him to. He gave me $40 when he dropped me off that I didn't ask for. Something else I didn't ask for, I didn't ask him to preach to me all the way from Oklahoma to California.
He was a Christian, and he was telling me all about the Bible. I thought, "oh, the Bible's a fairytale." I mean I believed in all these different new-age religions and reincarnation, and he's telling me about the Bible. And I had to listen to him or jump out. And then I said, "I'm going to try and find God through nature." And I moved up into the mountains, and I moved into a cave and I lived like a hermit for about a year and a half up there in that cave. And I never even wore clothes 'cause it was a hot desert mountain.
And I thought, "I'm going to be natural." And one of the miracles is, once or twice a week, I'd come to town, I'd beg for money. One of the miracles was that somebody had left a Bible in the cave, and I started to read the Bible and it changed my life. And even though I was living like a hermit back then, now I'm going around the world telling people about Jesus. The Bible became the map to truth for me. And God has a big plan for your life too.
Now, I took a lot of time telling you my story but I wanted you to know why the Bible's so important. Question number seven: when we accept the Bible as God's Word, can we know things that others are still searching for? Oh yes you can! It says in psalm 119:100, "I understand more than the ancients, because I keep your precepts." When you keep the commandments of God, you're wiser than the ancients. And again, "your commandments have made me wiser than my enemies; for they are ever with me." God's Word will make you wise. See, the Word of God is a weapon that we can use to fight against the enemy. It's like a sword.
It's like a shield. See, we've got a sword up here right under the Bible 'cause the Bible says that the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. Whenever Jesus was tempted by the devil, what did he do? He quoted the Bible. You know, I heard a story. We're not too far away from houston.
And you've probably heard of sam houston. Well, he had a son, sam houston jr. And something amazing happened one time. He was in the battle of shiloh and during the midst of the battle, he got shot by a bullet, got knocked down. And when he picked himself up and he recovered, he realized that the bullet hit his backpack.
And when he finally got out of the midst of the battle, he pulled out his backpack and he found out that his mother's Bible that was in his backpack is what the bullet hit. And you know, inside that Bible, the bullet stopped right on the verse that said, "the Word of God is like my shield and my protection." That's right where the bullet stopped. God's Word will be a shield for you. It's a sword. It's like Jesus used to protect him from temptation.
It will protect you. See, Jesus is like the Bible. The Bible says Jesus is bread and the Bible is bread. Jesus is the light of the world; the Bible is a lamp and light unto my feet. The Bible tells us that the Word of God is eternal; it says Jesus is eternal.
Everything you find out about the word, you'll also find is true about Jesus. So when you read the Bible, Jesus is the word. You're getting to know him, The Son of God, and he wants a personal relationship with you. So, how can we understand the Bible? We've got to read it. Taste and see that the Lord is good.
I'm just wondering, how many of you know how to read? What's the most important thing you should read? The Bible. It's the map to the treasure, to heaven. Everyday we should read the Bible. It will completely change your life. You know, there's an amazing story in history.
Some of you have probably heard the story about the mutiny on the bounty. Back in 1779, there was an english ship called "the bounty." The captain was a very difficult man named captain william bligh. And his crew got so tired of him, they mutinied. They put him and some of the officers into a boat and pushed them away. But then they knew they'd have the entire british navy looking for them, trying to hunt them down.
And so they said, "well, we better hide and where in the world are we going to hide so that the british navy's not going to find us?" Because if you mutinied, you know what they did to you? They'd hang you 'til you were dead. Mutiny, they didn't fool around with that. It's amazing that captain bligh, he went 3,000 miles with his officers. He was a good sailor. He went 3,000 miles in that little lifeboat with his officers, and they lost 1 man.
But the rest of them all survived. But fletcher Christian, the leader of the mutineers, they went back to the island of tahiti. And there on the island of tahiti, they let some of the men off and they got 11 women 'cause they thought, "we're going to have to just go find somewhere to hide from the rest of the world." And they got about six polynesian men and the other eight mutineers, they took the bounty. And fletcher Christian was looking through captain bligh's logbook and he saw that where captain cook had one time made a note on one of his voyages that there was an island called "pitcairn" that had water on it. It had a harbor on it.
It had some vegetation and food. And that's all he said. And it was out in the middle of nowhere. And they thought, "we'll go hide on this island. There's water.
There's food. We got men and women. It'll be like the Garden of Eden. We'll make a paradise." But you know what happened? Those sailors, they didn't have the Lord in their lives. And they got on that island, and they burnt the ship.
They took everything off the ship they could keep. They burned it so that the navy would not sail by and find them. And they thought, "we can hide here. We've got our Garden of Eden, our paradise." But do you know what happened? They didn't have the Lord. They all started to fight, and they got jealous and the men and women started to fight.
And men were fighting for other men's wives. And one of the men learned how to make alcohol out of some of the plants on the island, and they began to drink. Pretty soon, they began to kill each other. And the men all began to fight and argue and kill each other until pretty soon, there was one man left. And his name was adams, John adams.
And he thought, "what's become of us? This was supposed to be a paradise. We're all killing ourselves." And at this point now, he's got 11 women and 23 children and him. He was digging through the chest of captain bligh. In the bottom of the chest, there was a Bible. They had noticed it before, but they never looked at it.
And they pulled it out and they all began to read the Bible, and he began to teach the women and the children to read the Bible. And they all learned about the truths in the Bible. Pretty soon, they all began to get along and there was harmony and they were praying and they were trusting God. About 9 years after they'd landed on the island, they were discovered by a whaling vessel. And when the captain of the whaling vessel went on the island of pitcairn, he said, "I met all these people that spoke kind of an english gibberish and they were all so loving and they were so happy and they were so kind.
" He said, "I've never seen such a pious group of people." They not only prayed before they ate, they prayed after they ate. And they realized that without God, they could never have happiness. Now, there's a lot of things that you could read. There's a lot of programs you could watch. And some of you, you have your little computer games.
There's a lot of things you could with your time where you can waste your life and never learn about God, and you won't find real happiness. You know what the real treasure is? The treasure is to be learning about Jesus so that you can have everlasting life. During this series of meetings, we're going to tell you how you can find that treasure. You know, years ago, when they used to sell these treasure maps, most of the treasure maps were frauds. And a lot of people--the sailors would make money.
They'd say, "you know, I was on this ship and the captain of the ship, he buried a treasure and here's a map. And if you follow this, I'll sell you this map, you'll find the treasure." And some people would pay money. Even today, people pay for phony treasure maps. But you know, there were a few real treasure maps. I heard some stories about treasure hunters that found maps where ships went down during a hurricane off the florida keys and they found mountains of gold.
Another ship off the coast of California, another one by south America went down loaded with gold, and some people found real treasure maps. You know, the real maps sometimes in the pirate stories, they would show the map and they would put a big x in blood where the treasure was buried. Do you know there is a treasure map and it's called the Bible? The Bible is Marked, and you know what the x is? The x in red, it's the cross. See Jesus, he's the one who is the treasure. This book is all about Jesus.
I know when you look at the Bible, you think that maybe this is just black ink on white paper, "how can this be so special?" But there's something amazing about this book that changes people's lives. There's power in the words. And I wanted to encourage each of you to come to this series. If I'm going to be telling you through the Bible during this series how you can live forever, how you can have a happy life, how you can know what God's plan is for your life-- does God know the future? Does he know what your future is? Will he make you do what he wants you to do? You get to choose to give him your heart and to follow him. Jesus has Marked this treasure map with a red cross.
It's his life. He sacrificed his life. God came down to this world. He took on the form of a man. His name was Jesus.
He lived a perfect life to show you how to live, and then he died for your sins 'cause he loves you so much. He doesn't want you to die for your sins 'cause the penalty for sin is death. You can get to know about him and fall in love with him from reading your Bibles. How many of you would like to say, "I'd like to read my Bible everyday"? Our friends who are watching around the country and around the world, I'm hoping in your group right now, you'll raise your hands and say, "I want to know about God and his love for us." And I'd like to invite you. How many of you would like to say, "everyday now I'm going to read my Bible, I might start with a little bit but then it'll get bigger, but everyday I'm going to read my Bible"? Best time is in the morning.
How many of you would like to say, "by God's help, I want to read my Bible everyday and get to know Jesus"? This is the map to eternal life, the city of gold. Don't be like those boys that sold it for $30 when it's worth 30 million. This is the treasure map to eternal life. Would you like to pray with me right now that we could all have Jesus in our hearts, that we can have that gift of eternal life? You can have him in your heart right now by asking. Would you like to pray with me? Father in Heaven, tonight we've talked about the most important book in the world, the Bible.
And we know that Jesus is called "the Word of God." He is the bread of life. Lord, we want to know you better. We want to know what your plan is for our lives. Pour out your spirit on each person, all these young people who are watching, and help us be ready when Jesus comes. We pray in his name, amen.
In a word surrounded by darkness, there is a voice that whispers to every young heart urging them to find the treasure of truth. Those who follow the path will discover eternal riches beyond their wildest dreams. Pastor Doug Batchelor leads your kids on a powerful, soul-winning Bible study experience just for them. The 10-part series is filled with incredible Bible stories, exciting spiritual discoveries and heart-warming music, all designed to help your kids stand with Christ for eternity. The most valuable thing that God ever gave to this world was His Word.
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