Give Me the Bible

Where Did Your Bible Come From?

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Pr. Kenneth Cox

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Series Code: GMTB

Program Code: GMTB000041


00:19 Well good evening and welcome
00:20 to Give Me The Bible,
00:22 and this is a series
00:23 with Pastor Kenneth Cox.
00:25 And it's a series of twelve different subjects
00:29 and each subject is covered with five different lectures.
00:34 And this... we've been going on now for a number of months,
00:37 and people all over the world have been watching this.
00:41 And they have been ordering something
00:43 that I'm going to share with you.
00:46 Because if you don't realize this, all of these are available
00:50 on DVD. And you can order them
00:53 by simply calling the 800 number that you see on the screen
00:57 right at this very time.
00:59 And I invite you to do that.
01:01 A lot of people are sharing these with their friends.
01:05 I was talking to someone in Florida who had been taking
01:09 these subjects and inviting their friends
01:13 to come into their home and playing these subjects for them.
01:16 And my friend, I hope that you
01:19 make it your project to reach out to somebody
01:24 this particular year,
01:25 and you can really do it by using this series.
01:29 Now you can order all twelve...
01:31 and some people have been doing that.
01:33 Or if there's one particular one
01:35 on the Sabbath or on the state of the dead,
01:37 or one of the prophecy subjects
01:39 that you would like to have in your library,
01:42 then you feel free to order just that one.
01:47 But which ever, be sure to call.
01:50 And by the way when you do call,
01:51 remember that the Kenneth Cox Ministries
01:53 is supported by your generosity.
01:57 And I will tell you that this ministry is reaching out
02:00 around the world. And we just praise God
02:03 for the way He has used the Kenneth Cox Ministries.
02:07 Now tonight we're going to enjoy some music by Joe Pearles.
02:12 This is a very special evening,
02:14 and Take Away Jesus is the title of this song.
02:30 You can take all the pleasures I have to enjoy...
02:36 I'd still have a peace in my heart.
02:42 Take all the things that money could buy
02:48 I've got a mansion that time cannot scar.
02:54 But take away Jesus
02:57 and I have nothing to give.
03:02 Take away Jesus
03:06 and I have no reason to live.
03:11 Without a heaven
03:14 just bury me in the sand.
03:20 Take away Jesus
03:23 and I'd be a miserable man.
03:37 You can take all the flowers that bloom in the spring...
03:43 I'd still have a rose in my life.
03:49 Take all the water out of the ocean
03:55 I've got a river that never runs dry.
04:01 But take away Jesus
04:04 and I have nothing to give.
04:10 Take away Jesus
04:13 and I have no reason to live.
04:19 Without a heaven
04:22 just bury me in the sand.
04:28 Take away Jesus
04:30 and I'd be a miserable man.
04:36 Take away Jesus
04:39 and I'd have nothing to give.
04:45 Take away Jesus
04:48 and I'd have no reason to live.
04:54 Without a heaven
04:57 just bury me in the sand.
05:02 Take away Jesus
05:06 and I'd be a miserable man.
05:22 Amen.
05:24 Thank you Joe Pearles! Enjoy that?
05:28 Well, we'd like to welcome all of you that are joining us
05:32 by television or joining us by the radio...
05:37 listening on the radio.
05:38 Those of you that are here,
05:39 welcome! Welcome to another
05:42 production of Give Me The Bible.
05:44 We hope that as we're going
05:46 through these subjects
05:47 month by month
05:48 that they're helping you understand the Bible better
05:52 and better. That's the purpose of them,
05:54 and we want them to be helpful to you.
05:57 This particular month we're spending on the Bible.
06:01 Your Bible and You.
06:04 This is something that we felt was needed,
06:07 and so we hope that it will bless you in a special way.
06:10 Tonight we're talking about Where Did Your Bible Come From?
06:14 Our next presentation will be entitled
06:18 Which Translation Is Best?
06:20 Which translation is best...
06:22 because we have lots of different translations.
06:25 So which is the best one?
06:27 That's what we're going to take a look on
06:29 in the next presentation.
06:30 Then after that presentation we're going to be talking about
06:35 How Do You Know Your Bible's True?
06:38 How do you know that it's true?
06:42 Is there any evidence or anything to tell you
06:44 that this book is indeed true?
06:47 See? And then after that one we're going to have a
06:51 presentation on What The Bible Can Do For You.
06:55 Why should I read it?
06:57 What... what will it do for me?
06:59 What does it do?
07:00 That's what we're going to take a look at.
07:02 And we're going to close this series with the subject
07:05 How To Study Your Bible.
07:06 So those are the subjects we're going to be looking at
07:09 during this series, and we hope it will bless you.
07:12 It's very important that we understand that...
07:16 we know what the Word of God does for us.
07:19 That little poem that I've shared with you
07:20 night after night that says What says the Bible,
07:24 the blessed Bible? This my only question be.
07:28 The teachings of men so often mislead us.
07:32 What says the Word of God to me?
07:36 That's what we want to find out.
07:38 And so we're going to take a look at God's Word.
07:41 Find out what the scripture tells us about it
07:43 and see if it won't help us as we continue to study
07:47 God's Word and find out if it's something that I can trust.
07:51 You know? How do I study it?
07:54 What... what time should I spend with the Word of God?
07:58 These are questions that we want to look at
08:01 that we hope will bless you in a special way.
08:05 Tonight we're very happy to have Joe Pearles
08:08 back with us again. I know you're blessed.
08:11 I am always blessed when he sings for us.
08:14 And tonight he's going to sing a song entitled
08:16 If He Hung the Moon.
08:33 In the beginning
08:39 of time
08:41 He was the Creator.
08:49 Into existence
08:55 He spoke;
08:57 the heaven glowed.
09:05 And with one mighty swoop
09:10 of His hand
09:12 He threw out the stars.
09:16 He knew where they'd land
09:20 So if you're just drifting
09:26 along,
09:28 then I have good news.
09:36 And if He hung the moon
09:44 I know He will help you.
09:51 And if He keeps the sparrow
09:57 in flight,
10:00 He'll help you too.
10:07 Consider the lilies
10:12 of the field...
10:16 How much more He loves you!
10:23 In the beginning of time
10:27 you were on His mind
10:31 when He hung the moon.
10:39 Now if you feel like
10:45 the world is heavy on your shoulders
10:55 and even the closest
10:59 friend in life
11:03 is slipping away.
11:11 Though you have tried so hard
11:16 and lost...
11:19 there is still hope.
11:23 Look to the cross.
11:26 There you will see just how much
11:32 the Savior really loves you today.
11:42 And if He hung the moon
11:50 I know He will help you.
11:57 And if He holds the sparrow
12:03 in flight,
12:06 He'll hold you too.
12:14 Remember the sparrow
12:19 He knows;
12:21 He knows how He loves you.
12:29 In the beginning of time
12:34 you were on His mind
12:37 when He hung the moon.
12:45 In the beginning of time
12:50 you were on His mind
12:57 when He hung the moon...
13:05 He hung the moon.
13:34 Father in Heaven,
13:36 tonight as we open Your Word,
13:42 we look at where it came from,
13:46 what the history is
13:49 and how it applies to our lives,
13:52 we ask that You would give us understanding.
13:56 Give us wisdom.
13:59 Lord, help us to comprehend
14:02 spiritual things.
14:05 May the Holy Spirit be present.
14:08 May it open our eyes.
14:11 May our hearts be receptive to Your Word
14:14 and may each one of us be blessed in a special way.
14:19 For this we ask in Christ's name, Amen.
14:31 When I first became a Christian
14:36 and started going to church
14:40 no one told me anything about where the Bible came from.
14:46 I didn't know anything about it.
14:49 And as I think back on it,
14:53 when I went away to school
14:57 I still didn't know anything about the Bible...
15:00 other than I read the Bible and that type of thing.
15:03 But knowing anything of the background of the Bible,
15:06 where it came from, what was involved...
15:08 I didn't know anything about it.
15:10 It was just a book that had been there
15:13 all... as long as I could remember.
15:16 And my parents said it was a Bible and it was special
15:19 and this type of thing, and I accepted that.
15:22 But as far as knowing anything about it
15:25 and the background of it... I didn't!
15:27 That was totally something that no one ever said.
15:33 And I have to be honest...
15:35 I went through the college
15:40 and seminary and still didn't know much about it.
15:46 Just wasn't... wasn't made a subject that was stressed at all
15:52 and anything said about it.
15:54 But as the years have gone by,
15:56 I have realized that it's extremely important
16:00 that you and I know something about the Word of God.
16:04 Where it comes from; what's involved in it.
16:07 So tonight we're going to take a look
16:09 at where your Bible came from.
16:11 First thing we want to establish
16:13 is the scripture make it very clear
16:17 as to what the origin of God's Word is.
16:21 And this is what it says:
16:38 So it tells us clearly that the origin of scripture
16:42 is from God... not man.
16:45 That' what the Word of God says. That's where it came from.
16:48 Now, you may feel like this book
16:51 is a good history book.
16:55 You may feel like it's a good book of literature.
17:02 If you read it and study it,
17:05 it's a good book of grammar and all.
17:10 No question about it.
17:11 But I want to say this book is more than that.
17:15 This book is divine.
17:18 See? Divine.
17:21 And we need to understand that
17:24 because it says this here in God's Word:
17:37 So now, as we're talking about the Word
17:40 we're beginning to see the origin of it
17:42 and where it came from.
17:43 And essentially if that's where it had been left
17:47 I guess we still would have said "Yes, this is the Word of God. "
17:51 But to you and to me,
17:53 something much greater than that took place when it said here:
18:13 So we are finding that the Word of God became flesh.
18:17 And in Jesus Christ we find a revelation
18:23 of God. It's there.
18:26 That's what He told us,
18:28 and that's what He told us where we were to look.
18:31 In other words, He told us clearly
18:33 that we needed to spend time in the Word of God
18:37 to understand Him
18:39 and to understand what God said about Him.
18:42 As He was talking to the Pharisees
18:44 He said this to them:
18:57 These... "these are they which testify of Me. "
19:04 So that's what the scripture does...
19:06 all the way through from Genesis to Revelation
19:09 it testifies of Jesus Christ.
19:12 Tells us about Jesus Christ.
19:14 That's what the scripture does
19:17 as we go through the Word of God and we read it.
19:20 Now, the question we need then to ask this evening
19:24 is: when was it written down?
19:29 When... when did the Word of God come into being and all?
19:34 There's an interesting thing here that says...
19:37 speaking of Adam... and it says this about him:
19:48 So He took Adam, put him in the Garden of Eden
19:51 where he was to till and keep it.
20:02 So He put Adam and Eve in the garden.
20:04 And it says that God came down in the cool of the evening
20:08 and talked to them... visited with them.
20:11 I mean face to face.
20:13 They had communication... open communication with God there.
20:17 They didn't need anything written down
20:21 because they could talk to God face to face.
20:24 But the scripture says here:
20:36 Have you thought about that?
20:38 Now when it says he lived 930 years,
20:42 those are years like ours.
20:45 And if you need proof of that
20:47 then you just need to go and read about the flood
20:49 because it will tell you exactly those years were like our years.
20:53 And so it says he lived 930 years
20:57 and he died.
21:00 Have you put that together?
21:02 That means that Adam lived from the day he was created
21:08 to the day of Noah.
21:14 OK?
21:16 Lived from the time he was created to the day of Noah.
21:20 And then it says:
21:28 After the flood he lived 350 years.
21:31 But then it says this:
21:39 So, in the life of two men
21:43 we've got 1810 years.
21:48 Now you stop and think: here Adam...
21:51 Adam talked to the Lord face to face.
21:54 So he had direct communication.
21:57 There wasn't a need for the written word, folks,
22:01 because in the life of two men you had a clear revelation
22:04 of what God wanted and what He expected.
22:07 They were there; they understood it.
22:09 Adam was there; Noah understood it.
22:13 It was clear. And you find that Noah
22:16 lived clear to the day of Abraham.
22:23 OK?
22:25 Clear to the day of Abraham.
22:27 And by the time you reach Abraham the scripture says
22:30 he lived to be 175 years old.
22:33 And so in the life of three men
22:36 you've got 2000 years
22:39 in which you have people that understood clearly
22:45 what God wanted. And so the need
22:48 of written communication was not necessarily needed.
22:53 But then the children of Israel
22:56 went into slavery...
23:00 400 years of slavery.
23:06 Now God spoke of Abraham and said Abraham
23:10 was His what? Remember what it says?
23:13 Said he was His friend.
23:15 And it says that He spoke and talked with Abraham.
23:19 So he... he had communication with God;
23:21 he knew what the Lord wanted.
23:23 But when the children of Israel went into slavery,
23:26 here you have 400 years without it.
23:29 So when they come out of Egypt
23:34 then you come face to face
23:37 with the need of written word.
23:40 See? Now there needs to be something written down
23:45 so they know what God wants and what He expects of them.
23:50 And so the first recorded words
23:54 of scripture are these found in Exodus which says:
24:11 First written words God wrote.
24:15 God wrote those with His own finger
24:19 on tables of stone.
24:21 So there was no question here:
24:24 this is the first written recorded Word of God
24:29 on the Ten Commandments.
24:31 Now, as we take a look from that at the Old Testament,
24:37 we find the Old Testament is made up of books
24:41 and pamphlets and letters written by different writers.
24:46 In fact, written by 27 different writers...
24:50 those 39 books in the Old Testament.
24:53 The most prolific writer of all of them was Moses.
24:58 Moses wrote the first five books of your Bible -
25:03 Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
25:08 And those five books are called the Pentateuch.
25:13 That's what they're called.
25:14 The five books are called the Pentateuch.
25:17 Moses wrote them.
25:19 Now probably the best we can tell
25:23 the oldest book in the Bible is the book of Job.
25:28 And from all indications Moses wrote it also.
25:33 So that's the oldest book in God's Word was Job.
25:37 Then you have the Pentateuch that Moses wrote.
25:41 This began... this began what was called
25:45 the canon or the Old Testament.
25:50 And this became - as we'll talk about -
25:52 the basis of inspiration.
25:54 And I'll go into that in another presentation.
25:58 But this became the basis of inspiration:
26:02 that Moses wrote those first five books.
26:06 OK. Then after that other books were added.
26:09 The next book that was added was...?
26:12 See how you know.
26:14 Joshua, OK.
26:16 And then we have different ones that came...
26:19 and Judges and so forth.
26:20 Those were the ones that were added to it.
26:23 These were written on scrolls.
26:27 OK? That's what they were written on.
26:30 And scrolls were made from animal skins.
26:34 They could be made from a deer or a lamb -
26:40 sheep - or from a cow.
26:43 One thing they were never...
26:44 scrolls were never made from pigs.
26:48 Pigs were unclean, and they certainly would not
26:53 in any way would they write the Word of God
26:56 on a pig skin. That just didn't happen!
26:58 OK? But these were scrolls that they put together
27:03 and that they wrote the Word of God on.
27:06 Now a scroll, folks,
27:09 can be very, very long.
27:14 A scroll can be over 150 feet.
27:19 A scroll... one scroll. Over 150 feet.
27:23 Now you stop and think about that.
27:25 Here it is over 150 feet long
27:28 and a sheep - the skin of a sheep - might be 2 or 3 feet.
27:34 So if you make it out of sheep skin,
27:36 you've got to have a whole flock of sheep to make 1 scroll.
27:40 OK? But they wrote it on scrolls,
27:44 and these scrolls were very, very special to them.
27:48 Now, when the first five books -
27:53 the Pentateuch that Moses wrote -
27:57 was put in a scroll, that became known as the Torah.
28:04 If it did not have the first five books of Moses
28:08 or just part of them, it was not considered the Torah.
28:12 It had to have all five books
28:15 in order to be the Torah.
28:17 And this was what they read and studied.
28:19 And as time passed, other books were added
28:24 to the Word of God.
28:26 They were added step by step.
28:29 And as they were added
28:31 they became known as the canon.
28:34 Now the Jewish people looked upon the Word of God
28:38 in a very special way. And by the way,
28:41 if you can see those two Jewish boys, they are holding a scroll.
28:46 That's what's in that large container they're holding
28:49 is a scroll.
28:50 And they treated that in a special way.
28:52 I can remember I was over in Israel
28:56 and I had gotten up early that morning
29:00 because I wanted to go down to the Western Wall.
29:03 The Western Wall, folks... There's a huge, huge courtyard.
29:08 And I just wanted to go down there and sit down.
29:12 And I took my Bible with me and just had my own devotion.
29:17 I just went there to spend a little time.
29:19 Well, I get down here to this Western Wall
29:22 and that courtyard is absolutely filled with people.
29:26 I mean it's packed with people.
29:29 And I went over and kind of had a seat
29:32 and watched what was going on.
29:34 And over by the Wall there were some rabbis
29:38 and they were carrying one of these scrolls
29:40 all wrapped up like that.
29:42 And they were doing different things with it there
29:45 and all and chanting stuff and so forth...
29:48 And then a couple of those rabbis began to march
29:53 around the Wall there.
29:55 And some other... other priests and all...
29:59 began to follow them and the people following them.
30:01 And they marched around this, and as they did
30:04 they came right by where I was sitting.
30:07 And as they were going by
30:09 I spoke to one of the men there
30:11 and I said: "What's happening here?
30:14 What's taking place here? "
30:16 He said: "Oh, we're having a funeral. "
30:19 I said: "You're having a funeral? "
30:21 I said: "Somebody very, very important
30:24 must have passed away. "
30:26 He said: "Oh, somebody broke into our synagogue
30:30 and mutilated the Torah. "
30:33 They took it and cut it and all.
30:36 And they said: "We're having a burial for the Torah
30:39 or the scroll. " You see, they look upon the
30:43 Word of God as life.
30:47 They consider it life. They will only bury it.
30:52 When they've got to get rid of it, they bury it
30:55 because they consider it life.
30:58 So they consider it very, very special.
31:01 In fact, the scripture says this about the Word of God:
31:22 So they consider the Word of God something that's living.
31:28 And so when something happens to it
31:31 they take it out and bury it.
31:34 Very, very special to them.
31:41 How do we... you know, how did it come about and all?
31:44 The Jewish rabbis, and particularly the scribes,
31:50 were meticulous when it came to recording the Word of God.
31:56 Tell you what they did.
31:58 If a scribe was translating the Word of God
32:02 and if there was a mistake made,
32:06 they didn't just cross out the mistake or try to erase it.
32:10 They took that whole panel in that scroll
32:15 and took it out... the whole panel.
32:18 They took it out; put a new panel in;
32:21 and then continued writing.
32:24 That's what they did to make sure
32:26 that it was recorded accurately.
32:28 To make sure it was exactly what it said.
32:32 This went on until we reach
32:35 the... about 700 AD.
32:40 700 AD there was a group of Jewish scholars by the name of
32:44 Masoretes. The Masoretes had committed themselves
32:50 to make sure that the Word or the Old Testament -
32:54 the Hebrew Bible, would be translated accurately
32:59 in every way.
33:00 So they were more than meticulous.
33:05 I mean, before... before they would record
33:10 the Word of God, nothing - absolutely nothing -
33:14 could be written down by memory.
33:19 Would not allow it.
33:20 Could not be written by memory.
33:22 That scribe had to look at that word intently
33:27 and he had to pronounce it out loud
33:30 before he wrote it down.
33:32 And then, if it so happened
33:36 that in writing he got two letters close together
33:42 so they touched one another,
33:44 he had to take the whole panel out and start over.
33:48 There was that much... Not only that,
33:51 when he got through recording a particular chapter
33:54 he had to go through and count every word
33:59 and make sure the count of that one
34:02 agreed with the original.
34:04 That's what they had to do.
34:06 To keep the Word of God they made absolutely sure
34:09 that it was the Word of God
34:11 and it was kept accurately in every way.
34:14 This is not something, folks, that was done haphazardly.
34:18 This is not something that great care
34:21 wasn't taken about.
34:22 Something that was done
34:23 meticulously and done
34:25 to make sure that the Word of
34:26 God was recorded in a way
34:29 that it would not be lost or inaccurate.
34:33 And so they recorded the Word of God.
34:35 Oh, here a few years back now
34:38 there was a great lot of interest because they found
34:44 out in the desert a cave.
34:48 And in this cave were fragments
34:53 of scripture.
34:56 In fact, they checked these.
34:58 These became known as the Dead Sea Scrolls.
35:03 In the Dead Sea Scrolls, folks,
35:06 there was over 1100 fragments and portions
35:12 of the scripture found. In fact,
35:14 every book - portions of every book
35:21 in the Old Testament - was found
35:23 except the book of Esther.
35:26 That's the only one that wasn't found.
35:29 But portions of every one of them was found
35:32 except the book of Esther.
35:35 And they found the book of Isaiah
35:38 almost totally complete.
35:42 And they put it very... that's the book of Isaiah
35:45 that they found there in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
35:49 And they spent - the Jewish scholars - spent
35:54 ten years on the book of Isaiah.
35:58 I mean studying it.
36:00 Every detail. Ten years, and they found that there was
36:04 absolutely no difference to speak of
36:07 in any way between it and what the Masoretes had done.
36:12 It was accurate all the way through.
36:15 So when I pick up the Bible
36:18 I don't have to have any doubts about the Old Testament.
36:21 You know, it's there. It's the Word of God.
36:24 I can know that. It's been kept faithfully over the years.
36:28 I don't have to be in doubt about what it has to say
36:32 or what is given. So by the time
36:36 we reach about 500 BC -
36:42 maybe 400 BC -
36:44 the canon, or the 39 books of the Old Testament,
36:49 was established. That was pretty well set.
36:52 But by the time we reach two centuries before Christ
36:58 this is when they put the Apocryphal books
37:03 into the Old Testament.
37:05 Now the Apocryphal books are history books
37:08 that cover the period of time about 400 years before Christ.
37:13 That's what they cover,
37:15 and they're Apocryphal books.
37:17 And the Jewish people never saw them, folks,
37:20 as part of the canon.
37:23 They had them in the Bible,
37:26 but not as part of the canon.
37:28 The Hebrew Bible was written in Hebrew.
37:31 The Apocrypha was written in Greek.
37:33 So they were not put there together, but they WERE
37:37 a source of Jewish history.
37:39 And they were put in and kept that way.
37:42 This was the Apocryphal writings of the Old Testament.
37:47 Do you understand what I'm talking about?
37:49 I'm talking about such books as Maccabees and Judas
37:52 and these different Apocryphal books that were there
37:55 that gave some of the history of the Jewish people.
37:58 OK. This was the Old Testament.
38:02 As we get on a little farther
38:05 finally the Old Testament was taken and translated
38:10 from Hebrew into Greek.
38:12 And this became known as the Septuagint.
38:16 That is... when you speak of the Septuagint
38:19 or you read about it or you hear somebody say something
38:21 about it, that is the Old Testament in Greek.
38:25 OK? it was put in Greek form.
38:29 So this is kind of how the Old Testament came to you
38:32 and to me. Now can I share some trivia with you?
38:36 Huh?
38:37 OK. I'm going to tell you how
38:40 to remember how many books are in the Bible.
38:45 I'm going to tell you how never to forget it.
38:48 You know. Do you know how many books are in the Bible?
38:51 Yeah, 66 books in the Bible.
38:54 OK. But now I'm going to tell you how to remember that.
38:58 Never forget it. And how many are in the Old Testament
39:00 and how many in the New Testament.
39:01 So you've got the words Old Testament there on the screen,
39:04 right? In old, how many letters are there?
39:09 Three.
39:11 In Testament how many are there?
39:14 Nine. That's how many books are in the Old Testament.
39:17 OK. So if can you remember Old Testament
39:21 you can always remember how many books are in it
39:23 because there's 3 in Old and 9 in Testament.
39:26 So that tells you clearly how many are there.
39:28 OK. So now you know how many books are in the Old Testament.
39:32 And that is something that has come down to us
39:35 in a special way and has been a great, great blessing.
39:39 As you read the Old Testament, understand what took place.
39:43 OK. Let's go to the New Testament.
39:46 The New Testament now comes on in a different way,
39:51 and you need to understand the background of the New Testament.
39:55 Because when you understand that
39:57 then a lot of things begin to clear up on it.
40:00 You've got to understand that something took place.
40:14 Folks, with the birth of Jesus Christ
40:18 things drastically changed.
40:22 Drastically changed... because up to that time
40:27 the Old Testament was contained with the Jewish people.
40:35 It was a Hebrew book; it was with the Jewish people.
40:39 With the coming of Jesus Christ
40:42 the Roman Empire had also come into existence.
40:47 And the Romans... the Romans had now made
40:52 the pathways safe.
40:54 They had made the waterways safe.
40:57 They made travel, so people could go
41:00 many, many different places.
41:01 And now the gospel was not confined to the Jews.
41:09 The gospel was made available to...?
41:13 Anybody.
41:15 It was open to everyone.
41:18 And so no longer was it confined to the Jewish nation.
41:21 It was open to everyone.
41:23 So out of Jerusalem we find them going
41:28 many, many different places.
41:30 In fact, there's a text in the Bible that says
41:33 those that were scattered abroad
41:35 went everywhere preaching the Word.
41:38 And they went out preaching the Word of God.
41:41 Taking the Word of God with them and preaching it
41:44 every place they went.
41:46 The writings, if you please, of the New Testament:
41:50 27 books in the New Testament.
41:55 How many writers?
41:57 Eight, OK?
42:00 Eight. Those that wrote the gospels was
42:04 Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
42:09 They wrote and described the life of Jesus Christ.
42:14 That's what they recorded for us.
42:17 Marvelous as you read through the life of Jesus Christ
42:21 as they tell the incidents that took place in His life.
42:26 Then, the writing of Paul...
42:30 Paul wrote 13.
42:34 Of the 27 books in the New Testament
42:37 Paul wrote 13 of them!
42:40 We refer to those as Epistles.
42:44 Some of them were books, some of them were letters.
42:47 Just many different things that he wrote...
42:49 they are the Epistles.
42:51 And Peter and James and Jude wrote the others.
42:56 So those are the books
42:58 and those are the writers
43:00 of the New Testament.
43:02 By the time we reach
43:04 100 AD,
43:07 the canon of the New Testament is pretty much settled.
43:12 The 27 books are there.
43:16 And these people that went everywhere preaching the Word
43:19 they took this with them on scrolls
43:22 and they went everywhere talking about the Word of God.
43:26 Preaching it.
43:27 Do you know what the main thing they preached back then?
43:33 What do you think they really preached back then?
43:35 The main thing they preached back then was the resurrection.
43:40 The resurrection of Jesus Christ.
43:43 And, of course, the disciples could say they saw it.
43:48 Paul makes a big deal out of it
43:51 because he said that he was an apostle out of time.
43:57 That he saw Jesus Christ in vision,
44:00 and he makes a big thing about this fact.
44:02 That He IS the resurrected Lord.
44:06 Something that he believed and he taught.
44:08 So you have the New Testament given to them at that time.
44:11 It was written on papyrus.
44:15 Now papyrus is a paper-like substance
44:20 that's made from a reed called papyrus.
44:23 And they took it and they beat it
44:25 and from that pulp they made sheets.
44:29 And because it could be made in sheets,
44:31 it was made much into like a book.
44:34 And this became how the New Testament was done.
44:38 And so they didn't have to carry great big scrolls any longer.
44:42 They could take the Word of God and carry it with them
44:45 and go different places and preach the Word of God.
44:48 And so the whole concept in how the Word of God spread
44:52 was totally different.
44:54 OK?
44:56 Now I told you I'd tell you how to remember how many
44:59 books were in the Bible.
45:01 How many are in the New Testament.
45:03 New has how many letters?
45:06 Three.
45:07 And Testament has nine.
45:10 And three times nine is? 27.
45:15 So there you have it.
45:16 That's how many books are in the New Testament is 27,
45:20 39 in the old, giving you 66 books
45:26 in the Bible.
45:28 OK. Now let me explain something that happened
45:31 because we'll deal in another session on this more
45:36 but you need to understand what happened here.
45:38 The Word of God spread with great rapidity, folks.
45:42 In fact, by the time we reach 300 AD
45:45 half of the Roman Empire has become Christian.
45:49 And these people went everywhere, as it said,
45:51 preaching the Word. And they went out
45:53 and they taught it and they preached it.
45:55 And by the time you reach 500 AD,
46:01 the New Testament - the Bible, particularly the New Testament -
46:05 has been translated in over 500 different languages.
46:13 You think about that.
46:15 By the time we reach 500 AD the New Testament has been
46:19 translated in over 500 different languages.
46:25 OK?
46:28 By the time... by the time
46:33 you reach 600 AD,
46:37 there is only one.
46:42 All there is available to the people is Latin.
46:47 Jerome, 328 AD,
46:53 translated the Bible from then Greek and so forth
46:58 into Latin, and this became known as the Vulgate.
47:04 The church took the Vulgate version
47:11 and took every other one and made it an offense
47:16 for them to have the Word of God
47:19 in any other language than Latin.
47:22 And dear friends, let me tell you something...
47:24 the only Bible that was there for a thousand years -
47:30 from 400 AD to 1400 AD -
47:34 was only Latin.
47:36 And most of the people couldn't read Latin.
47:41 In fact, mainly the only ones that could read Latin
47:45 were the priests.
47:46 And the scripture was taken and chained to library walls
47:51 and told the people they couldn't understand it.
47:54 And therefore an understanding of it was taken away
47:57 from all of them.
48:00 Couldn't read the Word of God.
48:07 Well as time has passed, they have found
48:11 some old, old manuscripts.
48:19 This happens to be in the Vatican in Rome.
48:24 That's where this manuscript is kept.
48:26 Uh, along came a man by the name of Constantine Tischendorf.
48:33 And he was a German scholar.
48:35 And he was rummaging around in an old monastery
48:39 at the foot of Mt. Sinai
48:41 and in the trash in this Monastery of St. Catherine,
48:46 that's where that is,
48:48 he found a copy of the Word of God in the trash.
48:52 And he pulled it out, and it became known
48:56 as an old manuscript, it's a very old one,
49:00 and it's called the Codex Sinaiticus.
49:04 And that was found in 1844 AD.
49:09 OK.
49:10 Then some years later
49:13 in Egypt - in Alexandria, Egypt -
49:17 they found another manuscript:
49:20 and it's called the Codex Alexandrinus.
49:24 And those are the oldest manuscripts.
49:28 They date back to 200 and 300 AD.
49:32 That's where they come from.
49:34 Now folks, I've got to say a lot more about these,
49:37 but I don't have time tonight.
49:39 We'll do it in our next presentation, because these
49:43 are very, very important
49:45 that you understand what's involved in these.
49:48 But this became the source of our Bibles...
49:53 where they translated them from, many of them.
49:56 BUT, something happened.
49:59 In 1380 AD a man by the name of John Wycliffe
50:05 who was known as the Morning Star of the Reformation
50:10 comes on the scene of action.
50:12 And John Wycliffe sat down and he translates
50:16 the Bible from Greek to English.
50:21 That's the first one that comes into English
50:25 is by Wycliffe... 1380 AD.
50:29 He was persecuted unmercifully for doing this.
50:33 He had a group of followers that followed him
50:35 called the Lollards.
50:37 And they tried to make this available to the people.
50:40 The church - the established church - fought it horribly.
50:44 In fact, they sent a delegation down and arrested Wycliffe
50:48 to burn him at the stake.
50:50 And he died on them before they got him to the stake.
50:53 That's the only thing that kept them from burning him
50:55 at the stake. If fact, it so infuriated the Pope
50:59 that 44 years after his death
51:03 he had him dug up and his bones crushed
51:07 and thrown on the river.
51:10 Thought that this would put an end to it...
51:13 that that would settle it.
51:15 But the scripture says something, folks.
51:30 Morning Star of the Reformation
51:33 translated the scripture into English.
51:35 It also says this to us:
51:50 And so the Word of God went out.
51:53 Well, that put it into English.
51:56 When we hit the 1500s,
51:59 something begins to happen.
52:02 Along comes a man that takes the Word of God
52:06 and his name is Erasmus.
52:10 Erasmus knows that the Vulgate translation into Latin
52:16 has got flaw after flaw after flaw in it.
52:20 And he sits down, and something had happened.
52:24 As the Reformation broke,
52:26 then all these translations in other languages
52:30 began to surface.
52:32 And as they began to surface,
52:35 then Erasmus gathered some of these
52:38 and they began to translate
52:40 the Word of God from these different languages
52:42 back into the Greek.
52:43 And I'll talk more about this.
52:45 This became known as the received text.
52:49 And so Erasmus translated the Word of God.
52:52 And by the way, it was what Erasmus translated
52:56 that Martin Luther put his Bible into German.
53:00 And so you have the beginning of a change.
53:04 That's why Wycliffe is called
53:05 the Morning Star of the Reformation
53:08 is because from him it began to grow, and the Word of God
53:12 began to be made available to the people.
53:15 So you can see, the Word of God has a great, great history.
53:19 Wonderful as God has given His Word, that we can read it,
53:24 understand it, and follow it.
53:26 By all means, Give Me The Bible.
53:33 Give me the Bible
53:38 when my heart is broken.
53:43 When sin and grief
53:47 have filled my soul with fear.
53:52 Give me the precious
53:56 words by Jesus spoken.
54:01 Hold up my faith
54:04 to show my Savior's near.
54:10 Give me the Bible,
54:15 holy message shining.
54:19 Thy light shall guide me
54:24 in the narrow way.
54:28 Precept and promise,
54:33 law and love combining.
54:37 Till night shall vanish
54:42 in eternal
54:46 day.
54:50 Let us pray.
54:52 Father in Heaven,
54:54 thank you. Thank you for looking after Your Word
55:00 all these years.
55:02 We can see how it has been preserved
55:06 and brought down to us today
55:08 that we can read it and we can know
55:13 what You have done for each of us
55:16 and the great plan of salvation's available
55:18 for each.
55:20 Lord help us not to leave it laying on some shelf...
55:26 but to pick it up and day by day read it.
55:31 Give us Your Spirit so that we will understand it.
55:36 This we ask in Christ's name, Amen.
55:40 Well, our next presentation is: Which Translation Is Best?
55:46 Because today we don't have one or two translations...
55:50 we have dozens of translations.
55:53 How can I know which translation is the best one to read?
55:56 What's available to me?
55:58 So you want to be with us when we talk about God's Word.
56:02 Good night. God bless you.
56:05 Water can be both inspiring and awesome.
56:09 As it flows from the hills and the mountains
56:12 water changes the destiny of every living creature
56:17 it comes in contact with.
56:19 Not a single living thing
56:21 can survive without water for long.
56:23 But despite its beauty
56:26 the power of water can cut channels through rocks
56:29 and change the landscape forever.
56:32 In John chapter 7
56:34 Jesus stood and cried out saying:
56:37 "If anyone thirst, let him come to Me and drink.
56:40 He who believes in Me, as the scripture has said,
56:44 out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. "
56:48 As He did so many times,
56:50 Jesus explained the spiritual things of God
56:54 through nature... like flowing water.
56:57 This living water is a life-changing source.
57:00 It can change the landscape of our lives
57:03 and flow through us to change the lives of others.
57:08 Folks, we all need water to live...
57:13 but we also need living water.
57:16 Jesus is that living water,
57:19 and through His Spirit we can bring life to those around us.
57:23 The only goal we have at this ministry
57:26 is to offer living water to all mankind.
57:30 There are thousands - no millions -
57:34 who still long for this water: the living water of life.
57:38 Won't you help us quench their thirst?
57:41 Please consider what you can do
57:43 for those who still don't know about Jesus.
57:46 As the Holy Spirit impresses,
57:47 please send your tax-deductible gifts to:
58:01 Thank you for helping us spread the light of God's Word
58:04 through television and radio.
58:06 Your gifts help bring the blessed hope of salvation
58:08 to millions around the world.


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Revised 2014-12-17