Sunday
Morning Bible Study
April 18, 2004
Introduction
Psalm 119 is the longest psalm and the longest chapter of the entire Bible.
It is an acrostic psalm. Each section of eight verses begins with the same letter
of the Hebrew alphabet. The next eight verses all begin with the next letter of
the Hebrew alphabet. We’re now up to the ninth letter of the alphabet.
It’s a song all about the Word of God. It’s also a song written by someone
who was going through a difficult time in his life.
137-144 TZADDI – Tested and True
:141 I am small and despised: yet do not I forget
thy precepts.
(Psa 119:141 NLT) I am
insignificant and despised, but I don't forget your commandments.
I may not feel like a very important person, but God’s Word gives me value.
:142 thy law is the truth.
You can count on God’s Word.
:140 Thy word is very pure: therefore thy servant
loveth it.
pure – tsaraph – to smelt, refine; to test (and prove true)
Lesson
The Reliability Test
(Psa 34:8 KJV) O taste and
see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.
I think we can not only “taste”, but also “test” and see that God’s Word is
good and true.
Some people have some crazy ideas about how to test or prove stuff:
Illustration
Bread Is On The
Rise
We've done a little research, and what we've discovered should make anyone
think twice:
1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.
2. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the
average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were
unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid,
yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations.
3. Bread is made from a substance called "dough." It has been proven
that as little as one pound of dough can be used to suffocate a mouse. The
average American eats more bread than that in one month!
4. Bread is often a "gateway" food item, leading the user to
"harder" items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and even cold
cuts.
5. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than
90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being
taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey
bread-pudding person.
This all sounds as if we all ought to stop eating bread, right?
The Mormon Church will send young fellows to your door and encourage you to
read the Book of Mormon and see if God doesn’t give you a “burning in the
bosom”. This feeling is supposed to tell
you that the Book of Mormon is indeed true and Joseph Smith is God’s
prophet. But the Book of Mormon has some
problems in it, pretty big ones.
The book of Mormon tells the story of a family that left Israel
at the time of the Babylonian captivity (around 600 BC) and miraculously
traveled across the ocean to the land we call America. They carried something like a compass and had
swords made of steel. When they arrived
in America,
they found a land of plenty filled with cows, oxen, donkeys, and horses. There they settled and their descendants
broke into two groups, good guys and bad guys, and the bad guys became the
early ancestors of the American Indians.
Problems?
Steel wasn’t invented until the 1400s.
Horses didn’t arrive in America
until the Europeans brought them in the 1400s.
Scientists have now
compared the DNA of American Indians to the Jews, and there’s no connection. Archaeology says that there is no link
between the American Indians and the Jews.
The Book of Mormon mentions peoples and places, but no trace of them have been found. The study of language (linguistics) also
shows that there is no link between the languages of the American Indians and
Hebrew. Instead, all these sciences have
proven that the American Indians were linked with people from Siberia
and Eastern Asia, not Israel. Check out http://www.mormonchallenge.com/newmc/view.html
to see more.
Then there’s the “Book of Abraham”, a book that Joseph Smith said he
translated from a fragment of papyrus that came from an Egyptian mummy. At the time of Joseph Smith, nobody knew how
to translate the Egyptian language. For
years the original fragment was lost, but it was rediscovered a few years ago
and modern Egyptian scholars have proven that what Joseph Smith claims to have
translated has nothing to do with what was actually on the scroll. Check out http://www.bookofabraham.info/ for
more info.
On the other hand, if you are skeptical about the reliability of the Bible,
don’t just accept it, put it to the Reliability Test. I’m going to just give you a taste of the
huge piles of data that show that the Bible is true.
Illustration
Rediscovering the Philistines
: The Evidence of Biblical Archeology
by Charles Colson (BreakPoint
Commentary #000320 - 3/20/2000)
In modern English, the word “Philistine” refers to an uncouth or uncultured
person. The term is taken from the name of the people who were Israel’s
biggest rivals in the period between the Exodus and the reign of David.
Until recently, many scholars doubted the existence of the Philistines.
But, as with so much of the biblical text, the more the archeologists dig, the more
they confirm the historical nature of the biblical narratives.
As Jeffrey Sheler writes in his new book, Is the Bible True?, recent archeological discoveries
have not only proven the existence of the Philistines, they have also revealed
much about how they lived.
What’s even more significant for the doubters is that much of what
archeologists have learned confirms what the Bible says about the Philistines. For
instance, ancient Egyptian inscriptions indicated that the “Sea Peoples”—the
ancient Near Eastern name for the Philistines—most likely came from the island
of Crete. Well, the books of
Deuteronomy and Jeremiah say that the Philistines were originally from the land
of Caphtor.
And, as Sheler points out, scholars now believe that “Caphtor” is another name for Crete.
The Bible characterizes the Philistines as the best metal workers in the
ancient Near East—so much so that they exercised a virtual monopoly in the
sword- making trade. This characterization has been substantiated by the archeological
record. The record confirms both the Philistines’ skills in metallurgy and the
advantage that their superior weaponry gave them in their battles with the
Israelites—just as 1 Samuel describes it.
There is a remarkable consistency between what the Bible says about the
Philistines and what archeologists are finding. This consistency prompted William
Dever of the University
of Arizona to say “that all [the
archeological evidence] ‘fits’ the many biblical allusions so well . . .[and] shows that a
post-exilic editor cannot simply have invented these passages, that they are genuinely
archaic.”
In other words, archeology is debunking the idea that books such as Judges
and 1st Samuel were the products of some later writer’s fertile
imagination. The authors of these books weren’t inventing some glorious past
for Israel out
of whole cloth. Instead, they were working with real history—oral and written.
The narratives from the time of the Judges aren’t the only ones being
verified by archeologists. So many recent finds have given credence to the
biblical text that Biblical Archeology
Review suggests: “Biblical archeologists have been . . . heavily criticized
[for] being biased, for trying to prove the Bible.” But that’s not what’s going
on. The researchers are simply following where the evidence leads.
Many people—Christians and non-Christians alike—seem to believe that
science is the enemy of faith. But new discoveries in the Middle
East show us that scientific knowledge, when it is simply testing
facts, often buttresses faith. And that’s something your neighbors need to
learn about.
Because, as it turns out, the real Philistines of our day
are those who simply dismiss the Bible without looking at the facts.
Copyright (c) 2000 Prison Fellowship
Ministries
Illustration
Archaeological Evidence For The Reliability of The New Testament"
from A Ready
Defense, Josh McDowell, compiled by Bill Wilson (Nashville: Thomas Nelson,
1993), pp.108-122.
Sir William Ramsay is regarded as one of the greatest archaeologists ever
to have lived. He was a student in the German historical school of the
mid-nineteenth century. As a result, he believed that the Book of Acts was a
product of the mid-second century A.D. He was firmly convinced of this belief.
In his research to make a topographical study of Asia Minor
he was compelled to consider the writings of Luke. As a result he was forced to do a complete reversal of his
beliefs due to the overwhelming evidence uncovered in his research. He spoke of
this when he said:
“I may fairly claim to have entered on this investigation
without prejudice in favor of the conclusion which I shall now seek to justify
to the reader. On the contrary, I began with a mind unfavorable to it, for the
ingenuity and apparent completeness of the Tubingen theory had at one time
quite convinced me. It did not then lie in my line of life to investigate the
subject minutely; but more recently I found myself brought into contact with
the Book of Acts as an authority for the topography, antiquities and society of
Asia Minor. It was gradually borne upon me that in
various details the narrative showed marvelous truth. In fact, beginning with a
fixed idea that the work was essentially a second century composition, and
never relying on its evidence as trustworthy for first century conditions, I
gradually came to find it a useful ally in some obscure and difficult
investigations.”
Concerning Luke’s ability as a historian, Ramsay concluded after 30 years
of study that “Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his
statements of fact trustworthy... this author should be placed along with the
very greatest of historians.”
Ramsay also says: “Luke’s history is unsurpassed in respect of its
trustworthiness.”
The Waldenses were considered heretics by the
Roman Catholic Church in the middle ages because they held strictly to the
teaching of the Bible. They considered
the Bible like an anvil. They had a
saying:
Hammer away ye
hostile hands!
Your hammers break;
God’s anvil stands.
Illustration
No other book has survived the centuries unaltered as has the Bible.
It has been hated and hounded as no other book down through the ages. It
has successfully withstood the attacks of atheism, skepticism, rationalism,
pantheism, modernism and its many other enemies.
Voltaire once said, “The Bible will be a short-lived book.” The years proved Voltaire to be wrong and the
very house in which he lived was used to store Bibles.
The Communist dictionary issued by the Soviet State Publishing house
describes the Bible as a “Collection of fantastic legends without scientific
support.” Lenin once declared, “I expect
to live long enough to attend the funeral of all religion.” Lenin has long since been dead (and the Soviet
Union is gone), the Bible and religion has never been more alive.
Thomas Paine once stated, “Within 50 years the Bible will be a forgotten
Book.” But years later, the very press
he used to print this statement was being used to print Bibles.
Bob Ingersoll once boasted, “I am going to put
the Bible out of business.” But the
years proved Ingersoll wrong and his very desk was
later used to prepare Bible lessons.
Yes, the Bible has had many enemies.
They have lived and died - BUT THE BOOK LIVES ON! Jesus said, “Heaven and earth shall pass
away, but My words shall not pass away” (Matthew
24:35).
Why has the Bible stood the test of time?
Charles H. Spurgeon once told of
a minister who was sent to see an old lady and while he was there thought he
would give her some precious promises from the Word of God. Taking her Bible and turning to one, he saw
written in the margin “P” and he asked, “What does this mean?” “That means
precious, sir,” she replied. Further down he saw “T and P” and he asked what
those letters meant. “That,” she said, “Means tried and
proved, for I have tried and proved it.”
What about you? Have you tried
and proven it?
-- Dr. Calvin Evans
:144 give me understanding, and I shall live.
Lesson
Put it to the life test.
Learn God’s Word. Live God’s Word.
Jesus said,
(Mat 7:24-27 KJV) Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of
mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house
upon a rock: {25} And the rain descended, and the
floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for
it was founded upon a rock. {26} And every one that
heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a
foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: {27} And the rain descended,
and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell:
and great was the fall of it.
Our life comes from what we understand in God’s Word.
It’s God’s Word that tells us that we as humans have a problem, called sin. The Bible says,
(Rom 3:23 KJV)
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
It’s God’s Word that tells us that God has the solution for our problem,
found at the cross. The Bible says,
(1 Cor 15:3-4 KJV) …that Christ died
for our sins according to the scriptures; {4} And that he was buried, and that
he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
It’s God’s Word that tells us that we receive God’s gift of forgiveness by
trusting in Jesus who said,
(John 3:16-18 KJV) For God so loved the world, that he gave his
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life. {17} For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the
world; but that the world through him might be saved. {18} He that believeth on
him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he
hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Do you have this life?