Sermon Tone Analysis

Overall tone of the sermon

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Introduction
Belief in the Bible
2014 Gallup poll:
2014 Gallup poll:
24% of Americans believe the Bible is the literal Word of God (inerrant) - plenary word of God (every word in the original is without error and infallible)
26% view the Bible as secular stories and history
47% View the Bible as the inspired word of God - it contains errors but the main message is the inspired word of God
When those numbers are broken down by categories (white, black, male, millennials, older, protestant, Catholic, etc.), 35% of Protestant Christians believe the Bible is the actual inspired & inerrant word of God, while 51% believe it is inspired but not inerrant, and 14% believe it is an ancient book of fable.
The Bible is ancient, going back as early as 1400 B.C. for Genesis.
And the New Testament goes back to 30 or 40 A.D. (about 2000 years).
That’s old!
Is it reasonable to trust such an ancient book?
The only way you can trust anything is to look at the evidence…the track record.
The Bible is the best-selling book of all times…bar none.
I wonder why?
Logically, if we say we trust that the Bible is the infallible, inerrant Word of God, we must believe in God Himself.
Belief in God
John 1:1
According to Gallup, 79% of Americans say they believe in God.
In older surveys, spanning from 1944 to 1967, between 96 and 98% said they believed in God.
How can we trust an ancient book like the Bible?
How can we believe in God when we can’t see, touch, or hear Him?
79% believe in God while 11% do not
72% believe in angels while 16% do not
71% believe in Heaven while 15% do not
64% believe in Hell while 22% do not
61% believe in the devil while 27% do not
How can we trust an ancient book like the Bible?
How can we believe in God when we can’t see, touch, or hear Him?
My answer has to do with how God reveals Himself.
His existence and the truth of His Word becomes obvious when you consider the two ways He reveals Himself: general revelation and special revelation
My answer to that question in short has to do with how really does reveal Himself to all that have eyes to see and ears to hear.
His existence and the truth of His Word becomes obvious when you consider the two ways in which He reveals Himself: general revelation and special revelation (we will get into those in a few minutes
John 1:1
Prayer
Here’s what I propose to you today:
Here’s what I propose to you today:
Here’s what I propose to you today:
Big Idea: God's overwhelming revelation of Himself demands a choice: believe and follow, or deny and walk away
How can we have confidence in the existence of God and the inerrancy of the Bible?
Transitional: God did not abandon us to figure this out all by ourselves: He has revealed Himself
REVEALED IN NATURE
GOD REVEALED IN NATURE
General Revelation: God reveals Himself in physical nature, human nature, and history — each one revealing unique things about God
Physical Nature
Ps
Here’s what Paul had to say about it when he was in Athens -he saw all the idols - one was entitled “the unknown god”.
Paul said to the Athenians in , “Now what you worship as something unknown, I am going to proclaim to you”
God is Creator
He is the cause and the sustainer of the universe
God is Sustainer
God is Sustainer
but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.
The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.
According to physicist Steven Hawking, the laws of physics demonstrate how the world came into existence, that the Big Bang was the result of these laws.
…because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.
Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.
It is not necessary to invoke God… (Hawkings and Mlodinow, “The Grand Design”)
Does anyone else have a problem with that statement?
The idea that the universe can create itself from nothing is self-contradictory.
If “X” creates “Y” - then “X” has to exist in the first place in order to create “Y”.
“Y” needs “X” in order to come into existence.
Then where did “X” come from?
Even world famous scientists are capable of believing in nonsense.
Clip from “Expelled” (Ben Stein and Richard Dawkins)
Human Nature
God created humans in His own image and likeness
It makes sense that we can learn something about God from studying humans
Human History
“His Story”
Art, Music, literature, etc.
Application
Take time to observe God in creation (nature) human history (art, music, literature, moral codes, etc.)
Transition: General revelation…God also reveals Himself through Special Revelation (the Word)
REVEALED IN THE WORD
REVEALED IN THE WORD
General revelation reveals God as Creator — but that is not enough.
Nature cannot reveal God’s plan to save us.
Special revelation: Through the Living Word of God, we understand His heart of redemption
The Bible is Infallible and Inerrant
The easiest way I know to summarize this truth is through Hank Haneggraaff’s acronym: M.A.P.S
Manuscripts
How can we test to see that the text we possess in the manuscript copies is an accurate rendition of the original (autograph)?
Bibliographic Test
The Bible has stronger bibliographic support than any other classic literature
More than 14,000 manuscripts and fragments of the Old Testament exist
The Dead Sea Scrolls are the oldest…dating back to 250-200 B.C., only 200 years from the original Old Testament
More than 5300 manuscripts or or portions of the Greek New Testament exist
More than 5300 manuscripts or or portions of the Greek New Testament exist
Nearly 800 of those were copied before 1000 A.D.
Our earliest copies are within 60 years of the New Testament autograph
The Old and New Testament authors were eyewitnesses of — or interviewed eyewitnesses
When you look outside the Bible for corroboration of its claims, there is an abundance of historical, geographical, and cultural evidence
Archaeology
Many examples from Old and New Testaments
A biblical skeptic, Sir William Ramsay, trained as an archaeologist and then set out to disprove the historical reliability of this portion of the New Testament (Luke and Acts).
However, through his painstaking Mediterranean archaeological trips, he became converted as — one after another — of the historical statements of Luke were proved accurate.
Archaeological evidence thus confirms the trustworthiness of the Bible.
- Hank Hanegraaff
Prophecy
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