Why I believe

If you have a belief or a faith, have you ever taken the time to find out why you believe in what you believe in. It hit me a few years back. I asked myself the question. I have been a Christian my whole life. Why do I believe in what I believe in. Where is the proof? So that is when I started investigating the truth. I am going to give 5 peaces of evidence, why I believe in this amazing God the bible talks about.

First piece of evidence if I am going to make a case for the reliability of Gods word. It would be manuscript evidence. If you were interested in College in ancient manuscripts and you took a class and studied ancient manuscripts you would know from your studies that there are certain types of papyrus certain types of paper certain types of manuscripts and if you were educated in ancient manuscripts you would have the ability to tell me when a manuscript was written between 25 to 50 years when it was written. So we can figure out how far back they date. We have unearthed many ancient manuscripts so far. Let me give you a few stats. We have right now unearthed 7 different manuscripts from Plato. There was a roman historian his name was Levy we have found 10 different manuscripts of his writings. Homer has the most by far right now with 643 manuscripts. Now what's interesting about all of these ancient manuscripts that we have found so far is this. We have never found an original. We have never found an original manuscript from any of these guys. They have all been manuscripts that have gone down the line and yet know one doubts that Plato ever lived. Aristotle. The earliest manuscript we have of Aristotle is 1,450 years older than the time he lived. 1,450 years went by before we found a manuscript of Aristotle and yet you will never find anyone in a class room say Aristotle never lived. So here is the question. When it comes to the bible how much time went by from when the originals were written to what we have in our hands today. In the case of the Old Testament for a long time it was 1,300 years. And because it was such a long period of time people make the assumption that there is know way that what we have in our hands today is reliable and accurate to what the original authors wrote under the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit. Now something dramatic happened in 1947. There was a Shepard boy that was walking around by the dead seas. And he saw some caves by the dead seas and he began to look through the caves and he found some clay jar pots and he looked inside and found some ancient manuscripts of the Old Testament. Because of the findings which we now call the Dead Sea scrolls, now the earliest manuscript that we have of the Old Testament is only 600 years from the time it was written. So it went from 1,300 years down to 600 years. And what was so significant of the Dead Sea scroll findings was it had the entire book of Isaiah in it. Isaiah was written right around 750 b.c. The earliest manuscript before the Dead Sea scrolls was a manuscript from the book of Isaiah from 900 a.d. some 1,600 years later. So when the Dead Sea scrolls were found they dated those books back to 150 b.c. just 600 years difference from the time it was written. Now think about this. We have a manuscript at 150 b.c. And we have another manuscript at 900 a.d. Skeptics said there is no way when we put those two manuscripts side by side that they will even match up. Over a thousand years has gone by from the time that this one was written. There's no way there even going to look similar. So guess what we did? We lade them down next to each other. Side by side. Guess what we found? Not one single word was different. Are you ready for this? Not one single punctuation was different. So right now you are probably saying to yourself "How in the world could this be?" Let me explain something to you. Back then people took the word of God very, very seriously. They preserved it. They lived for it. They died to keep it going. And if you had the privilege of being the transcriber of the word of God you didn't take your job lightly. You took it very seriously. You see back in the Old Testament time, they didn't feel worthy enough to write down the words of God. But they did to preserve it. So this is what a transcriber would do. Before he would sit down he would bathe. Because he didn't feel worthy to enter into this holiness. Then he would begin to write and as a transcriber you weren't aloud to ad-lib. You weren't aloud to write from memory. Your job was take what was written and transfer it over. To take it from one spot to the other spot. These transcribers took this so seriously that every time they came up on the word "God" they had to bathe again. Because they didn't even feel worth to write down God's name. When they were done with the manuscript they would pass it on to some independent people who would check the manuscript and this is how they would check it. They would check it line by line from beginning to end. They would count the number of characters and the number of syllables and the number of punctuation, from the end to the beginning, then they would take it from the middle, then they would go from one side to the other side. If they found 2 errors on a manuscript they said they could fix those. If they found 3 errors on a manuscript they considered the manuscript condemned and it was disposed of. What is the time period from the Old Testament to the originals from what we have today, its 600 years? How about for the New Testament. Are you ready for this! It's only 25 years. 25 years from the originals. And out of curiosity how many manuscripts have we unearthed so far through archaeology, we said 643 for Homer, that's an awful lot! Well the bible only has 24,000 manuscripts. And every single one says the exact same thing. Over and over and over again. That is evidence number 1.
Evidence number 2. Archaeological evidence. Archaeologists have dug down to find out what went on before us and one of the things that concerned archaeologists for many years is that the bible talks about a large civilization called the Hittites. And archaeologists and scientists have said that we have never found any evidence for the Hittites civilization so obviously that part of the bible that talks about the Hittites isn't accurate because we haven't found anything with this population of people and the bible clames that there was a huge population a huge empire so obviously the Hittites were a myth a fable a lie, that portion of scripture isn't accurate. Then something happened in 1906. It happened that an archaeologist unearthed the capital city of the Hittite nation. And he just so happened to find a map that helped him unearth 40 more cities of the Hittite nation. You have now studied in school about the Hittites. And the bible said all along that they were there we just had to find the remains that they were there. Let me throw another one at you. For a long time people believed that Daniel wasn't an accurate book. At least the skeptics did. And the reason they didn't believe that the book of Daniel wasn't accurate it because the bible talks about this king by the name of Balthazar. And all the little tablets and all the little stones things that we have of the Babylonian kings Balthazar aren't listed as a king. So all the skeptics think there is no way the book of Daniel can be accurate because Daniel clamed there was a king by the name of Balthazar. Then 1956 an archaeologist unearth 3 stone tablets and on those 3 stone tablets explained what happened during this time period. Turns out the king of Babylon at that time decided to go on an extended campaign to wage war in far away nations. And he left his son in charge of the kingdom whose name just happened to be Balthazar. Who just happened to be reigning at the same time Daniel said he was in Babylon who just happened to be there at the time when Daniel wrote the book of Daniel. They have just found at the red sea the one passage point were the children of Israel could cross where God parted the waters so they could cross the red sea. And they have unearthed under the water in the red sea large Roman chariot wheels. How do you explain that? We have the archaeological evidence that it did happen. Archaeologists have unearthed millions and millions of artifacts and have yet to find one thing that disproves the bible.
#3. Scientific accuracy. So let me just say first, the bible isn't a science book. Now I am just going to list the top 4 and there is like 30 or more of these. So scientist through out the centuries has said that this is the way the world is. And the bible says no it's this way and it turns out that the bible was right. For example. The bible says that the earth is round. Scientists believed it was flat. How about this one. The number of stars. The bible says that there are billions of stars in the sky. Did you know that for along time those scientists only thought there were 1,100 stars in the sky? Well we know now that the bible was right. There are billions and billions of stars. The bible says that the wind blows like a cyclone. Scientists for many many years believed that the wind blew straight. You watch the weather channel lately. They say the wind blows like a cyclone. The bible says that blood is the source of life and of healing. For a long time we thought if somebody was sick they needed to bled. They would drill holes into people's skulls to bleed them out. Well what did we find out about blood? The blood is the source of life and of healing. Again the bible isn't a science book. But when the bible speaks of science it has yet to be disproven.
#4. Prophetic evidence. The Old Testament makes some incredible and some very specific predictions about who the messiah is going to be. Some of those predictions were written some 1,400 years before Jesus was born. And these prophecies from the Old Testament are very specific. They talk about where he is going to be born, when he is going to be born, what is going to appear when he is born. It talks about how he is going to live and how he is going to die. There are 332 prophecies concerning the Messiah. It's as if God was saying "Listen, I don't want you to miss the messiah when he comes, so I am going to give you 332 clues. The person who fulfills all 332 prophecies that is the messiah." So how many prophecies did Jesus fulfill? 332. All of them. And the skeptics say "well of course he did" He was very young, probably went to the temple allot and read the manuscripts read all the things that he needed to read to fulfill all of the prophecies. Well let me just say that person doesn't know much about prophecy. For example. The prophet said where the messiah would be born. That he would be born in Bethlehem. That he would come from the house and line of David. Those wise men would come and bring him gifts and that babies in the surrounding areas would be slaughtered because of his birth. Now those prophecies are pretty hard to do when you are just a baby in a manger. If you have a bible I want you to turn to Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53 is a beautiful description of what Jesus did for us on the cross. Now remember Isaiah was written right around 750 b.c. 750 years before Jesus came on the scene. It talks about all the things that the Messiah would go through. Now get this. This was written before crucifixion was any form of punishment. Hadn't even been invented yet and yet in Isaiah he was able to tell us with great detail what it would look like. Now look over at verse 9 of Isaiah 53. It says "He was assigned a grave with the wicked." Ok so when Jesus died he was assigned a grave with the wicked. Here is what they would do with criminals that died on crosses. They would dump there bodies in Gahanna. Which was the city dump? When Jesus talked about hell he talked about Gahanna. Gahanna was a place of wild dogs that were looking for something to eat. It was a place where the fire never went out. Well Jesus died as a criminal. So what they would do is once a criminal would die on the cross they would dump the bodies at the city dump. Now imagine if Jesus would have been buried out in the city dump. There would be nothing left of Him. The dogs would have eaten him up. But then if you keep reading in Isaiah it says this...and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Joseph of Arimathea comes on the scene and gives Jesus a Kings burial. Joseph had a tomb that had never been used. So answer this question. How do you fulfill a prophecy when you're already dead? I could go on and on and on and on. You just have to study the evidence. It's all there. There is proof. Documented proof.
Let me give you one more and then I am done for now. #5. The evidence of changed lives. I truly believe that most people don't want to read the bible because they are scared what it might say to them. Millions and millions of people. Rich and poor. Regardless of the color of there skin or social status. Kings and poppers who have read this book have found a God who loves them and forgives them. A God who sent His only Son to die for our sin. There is hope in the words of these pages. There is forgiveness in the words of these pages. There is a second chance in the words of these pages. When you read the pages of the bible they find meaning and purpose in there lives and they would give up there life to the point of death to protect this book.