Evidence of Eternity | Week 3 | Message

I am reminded of back when I the day I was gonna get engaged to my my wife. Well, I was hoping I was getting engaged. I was hoping she'd say yes. I had set my wife up to be surprised,

and what I was gonna do was I was going to show up at her college that I didn't go to. I'd already arranged with her last professor of the day to come in and ask her, and it was Halloween so I had rented a gorilla suit because you if you've been here very long, I am doing excellent

gorilla. It's one of my God given gifts, and and so I was gonna come in, you know, and and then I had I had slit a banana, put the ring in there, so when she peeled it back, the ring would be sitting there. And it all worked out. But one thing is I that morning of, I go, I gotta get a haircut.

And I heard someone tell me, hey. You the cheapest place you get a haircut at? And that's usually not the way to go, but I I'm cheap. So I was like because I spent money on a ring. So, I I went to this place that it was only $5 for a haircut is all this guy charged. And even back then in California, it was like $12 for a haircut. So this is like one third the cost. That should have been exhibit a of maybe this isn't the place to get your haircut.

I then roll into where it is. Exhibit b was where he cut hair was he kinda sub leased or maybe he owned the place was inside a liquor store. And so I I I go in there and there's this old guy who was like kinda tatted up and and I tell him

what I want. I go, hey. I I I'm something for today. I just want my hair, and I kinda wanna style that I want it shorter everywhere else, but still

long enough in the front that it can be styled. That's what I told him. And he goes, oh, I got it. That's a trend. I know exactly the style you want. I got it. Sit down. So I sit down. I take my glasses off. And back then, I hadn't had laser surgery. My I had mister Magoo glasses. So when I sat down and took my glasses off, I look into that little Marriott setup, you know, leaning against the wall. He didn't even have a whole setup, and all I could see was shapes and colors. You know, I didn't know. And so the third sign that something was going wrong is when I the amount of hair I saw falling on the on the ground.

Fourth evidence was I realized he he was done in about two minutes, and he never used scissors. And then all he did at the very end was I he took some scissors and right across the front he went he goes, alright, you're done. What do you think? And I put the glasses on and my first response was, can you make it longer?

And now I know why you're in a liquor store. I need a drink because I can't believe what I'm looking at. What he had done was shaved my whole head. And then when I said leave more in the front,

I'm not talking about a lot of the front. It was just the very first hair follicles. The very first line. That's all he left was one line and he cut it to be this long. And and then he kinda styled it for me, which the only thing he could do is he kinda smushed it together. I looked like a unicorn.

Now I know what many people have asked and I've asked myself the same question. Why didn't I just have him cut that off too and just go with the shaved head?

I don't know. Why didn't I go home and cut it off? I was desperate. I was so didn't have any hair and I'm supposed to ask my wife to marry me. You know, I'm gonna ask her in a few hours and I'm like, I look like an idiot. And I was just desperate to hang on to any little hair I had. I don't know why. I did. And a matter of fact, it was so bad that when I went in there, was like, is there any way I can leave the gorilla helmet on that mask on the whole time? Can I just do that? But then I thought, but then if she says yes,

how who is she saying yes to? Does she even know it's me? I have to take this off. So when I finally did it, the moment when I got down on one knee and asked, I I I looked at her and she got this surprise look, but it was a different surprise look. That she already had the original surprise look that she's getting proposed to. This was more of a

and then she says, yes. And then right after she just said, yes, she leans up and she goes, what is wrong with your head?

I think that says more about her that she still married me. But the idea was I did not listen to the evidence. I trusted the wrong thing going after this trend. And that's what we're gonna see today because as we've looked these last few weeks at the evidence to see that Jesus

is is the only way. Last week, we looked at all the evidence of the resurrection. This week, we're gonna look at some of this evidence and look at the clarity of the Bible is trustworthy. The Bible is truth. The Bible is the word of God.

And what we're gonna look at is is from this point of view of this big idea that we need to trust what's true, not what's trending.

And and in our world, we tend to trust trends. And what I mean, and the biggest trend throughout history has been, as it says in Romans one, we make God in our own image.

And then it says, we suppress the truth, Romans chapter one says. Says here's the issue. We tend to make so we'll act spiritual, but we wanna be in control of the narrative. Or we don't wanna be spiritual at all, so we suppress truth.

And that making God in our own image means we go after all these things that we worship basically in our lives that we think this is the way. This is the way to live. This is the meaning of happiness. This but in reality, when we make a God in our own image, who's really God? We are.

And that's really the heart of sin. When the Bible says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, it goes back to the original lie that Adam and Eve believed. That, you know what? You can't trust God. You need to do it your way, and then you will be like God.

And that's what we've been that's the trend we have followed ever since. So I set that out there to say, because this is the reason. As we look at this evidence, if you're willing to look at the actual truth, it is so clear as day that the evidence says the Bible is reliable. You can trust it.

But there are experts that try to fight against, and we'll explain why. Why does it keep happening? It's gonna go back to what the Bible already says in Romans chapter one plays out over and over and over and over again in our world. So I just wanna look at five things here.

And really, the theme verse going into all this is Isaiah chapter 40 verse eight. I know it's I'm gonna read it to you. There it is. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever.

And we're gonna see that it has stood and it still stands. So evidence number one, the things we can trust. We can trust the reliability of the manuscript. What does that mean? One of the most common misconceptions and and and and skeptical

statements people will make is, well, you know what? I don't know if we can really trust the bible because how do we know what we have is what was written? You know, it's it's been translated and translated and translated,

and and and so many people say it's probably been changed over the years. It's like a copy of a copy of a copy. First and foremost, that's a misunderstanding of how translation works. Translation isn't like you take the latest English copy and then start over reading from that. That would make changes over over years.

Translators go back to the oldest manuscripts closest to the time in the original languages and start over every single time. And so that's a misunderstanding. There isn't a copy of a copy of a copy. But really the question is, how do you study and know that in any document,

any old document, any historical how do historians they're kinda like detectives. How do they take an old document and determine, is it really what we're reading what was written? That's the question. And it's called it's called textual criticism.

Just to prove that I actually went to school, and at least on that day I paid attention to at least one sentence. And and and what is textual criticism? It's finding out the reliability. Do we have what was written? And and the truth is you ask two questions.

The two important things that understand the gold standard of trust is how many manuscripts exist? How many copies? Because ancient documents, there are no of the originals left.

So what you look for is how many copies are there. Because if it's been copied a lot, the likelihood of being accurate is more. It means it spread fast. It was known. How many copies exist so you can compare them and see if there's any differences. You have lots of copies and there's no differences,

you can be pretty sure that you have a reliable document. And the second question is, how close to the time they were written? Okay. So those are the two keys to say how reliable. And you see there are skeptics out there saying, well, we can't really trust the bible. They say all these things.

But here's the evidence. I wanna show you a little chart here, and and that shows some different writings from the same period from ancient history. The top three are considered reliable and trustworthy by historians, by their standards of these two questions. I just wanted you to see what is considered a good amount

for any ancient document. And look, the Gallic Wars, Julius Caesar, there's only all we know about the history of Julius Caesar in this period of time is from this writing, and in your history books, they write about like this is what happened. We trust they trust this source. There is only 10 copies,

and the earliest copy is a thousand years after the actual events, and that's considered trustworthy by experts, by by historians. Then Plato, seven copies. The earliest copy is thirteen hundred years after Plato wrote. Homer's Iliad, that's the that's a goal test, considered really trustworthy

because it's only four hundred years later, and they found they have 643 copies.

What about the Bible? Didn't we? We already talked about the old testament last week. The good Dead Sea Scrolls, that's one of the examples in the notes, if you weren't here. The Dead Sea Scrolls kinda proves the old testament was copied correctly

because they found thousands of year old copies of it in these caves, and it matches what we have today. So that's already been covered. But the New Testament, there are 23,986 copies of manuscripts that are that many are within they're within thirty years of the originals. That is the absolute gold standard of reliability.

So here's the point of point number one, if you wanna stand. That doesn't necessarily prove it's God's word, but it disproves the idea that you can't trust it because the copies of a copies and all of that. It's we have what was written, and the evidence is overwhelming that if you're gonna believe any ancient document

as to the do we actually have what was written, The bible is the clearest winner. It's not even remotely close to number two. So yes, the reliability manuscript. But then when people go the and the one example I'm gonna give, another example of knowing this that we have was written is the early church fathers quotations.

Who are the early church fathers? Guys like Polycarp. Polycarp was discipled by John, who wrote the book of John, one of the 12 disciples. The church fathers were the were the ones that led the church

the very next generation. They knew the disciples. They were there when the bible they're probably kids when Jesus, you know, died, many of them. And then it goes from them through the next two generations. So about a hundred years of these guys, and and they were right there when it would happen. They quote they have over we have written from their hands over a million quotes

of the of the New Testament, and guess what's in that million quotes? The entire New Testament. Well, you can put together the entire two New Testament from their quotes, and guess what all their quotes match? The New Testament we have today.

So you can't that idea that says, well, you don't need to trust the Bible because it's copy it's it's there's no evidence for that. Then why do experts why try to say that? What is suppression of the truth. They you just you just don't want to accept this. And here's the reason.

On all of these points, when there is a so called expert

that tries to say you can't trust the liability of the Bible or they don't want to, like with historical stuff throughout history, they've said we don't trust these things. If it's in the Bible if we don't find something outside of the Bible, then we don't believe it's true. The reason they do that isn't because of evidence.

It's because they've already went in with a pre tenderment. As we research this stuff, we will not accept anything supernatural or spiritual. So they they go in with a bias that the Bible has a spiritual book. It's a religious book. So they will not accept

anything that's supernatural in it, and they they are very suspect of any historical things in it just because of that. Not because of any evidence. And like, people really do that? Yes. We do these things all the time. We trust the trends, not the truth all the time. Even when the evidence is right in our face.

I looked up some some some some some different real news stories that have happened throughout the years. And and back in a a few years ago in Australia, a group of tourists

wanted to go to this island, and they put punched in the the the the destination in their GPS, and it gave them a direct route. And so they took it directly into the ocean. This Michael Scott isn't the only one that's that dumb.

They literally drove, and it says they drove, and they went right towards the water in the bay. They walked they drove down a boat ramp, which and then they drove into the water, and then the article actually quoted them as saying, when the water got mid door level, we knew something was wrong. When

it got to mid door level, you knew something was wrong? How about when fishermen are jumping out of the way and the guy with a jet ski trying to get his boat in or his boat in the water had to move out of the way as you drove right down this thing. How about when you just looked out the windshield

and saw that's a boat ramp and that's the ocean. There's no road. How about you knew something's wrong? Blindly, I don't care. This is the way. And it didn't work. Didn't work. They lived. Their their their car did not. So you can trust that what we have is what was written. It hasn't been changed.

That's another key element why they don't wanna believe that because we'll see you later on when we get a prophecy. Second, we can trust the historical accuracy. That was another thing. They don't wanna trust the historicity of it since it's a religious book. So I said, yeah. It's always why?

We trust the Gallic Wars that was written with seven copies. Why? Why wouldn't you trust it? Because it's the Bible. It's a religious book. So the the history is always questioned. There's always things that especially if it sounds weird. If it sounds like that's unexplainable, there's no way that happened.

For for for example,

the the example I'm gonna use is Joshua six talks about the the collapse of Jericho's walls.

If you don't know the story, it's it says the Bible describes this whole thing what happened. God's people are now about fourteen fifteen hundred BC. They're getting to go back into the promised land. They're they're gonna take the land. God says, I'm gonna be with you. You're gonna take this land.

And what he says is they crossed the river at the harvest season was swollen. And there's all these details in there at the time that they kinda make you feel when you're reading the Bible like many of you probably feel when I'm talking sometimes because I've gotten old enough that it's like, man, he throws a lot of useless details into his stories, doesn't he? And and and and and and it's like it feels like that, only now we're gonna find out why. It's like God knew. He was inspiring these people to write. They recorded these things almost to say thousands of years later, uh-huh.

Because he describes it was the harvest season and describes it when they went to Jericho, how they sieged the city was not a traditional climb up attack,

collapse some what you try to do was knock in a section of wall or sections of wall so you can get in the city. They go in. It says they marched around it. They marched around. The last day, they marched around. They blow trumpets, and it said that the walls fell outwards all at once.

And then they ran up the walls. It created a ramp for them to run up the walls, and they went in the city. They sieged it quickly, so there wasn't a long siege. It was less than a week, and and and and and they burned the city,

and they took it. But also it said reported that God said, take nothing. Do not loot. Do not take the food. Do not take the loot. No pillaging. And back then, when you when an army took a city, especially if you took it fast, you wanted their food. You wanted the loot. The soldiers were allowed to loot and rampage because that's how they got paid and benefits.

And and they said said all of that. And nobody believed it until 1930 when they unearthed ancient Jericho. And here's what they discovered in this dig. It says, as they discovered that Jericho's walls had collapsed outward, not inward,

the collapse left a ramp like pile of debris allowing anyone that attacked to go straight into the city.

The city had been burned with layers of ash, confirmed there was a massive fire just like Joshua six twenty four says. Large storage jars filled with charred grain were discovered indicating the city fell quickly and the attackers didn't take the food.

Interesting. That story was not believed to be true because it sounded ridiculous, and it was proven true. That's happened hundreds and hundreds. So many times the history has has has proven to be true. Matter of fact, there is total confirmations of faith in the bible that people said,

this isn't real because it's only listed in the bible. There has been over a 100 names, over a 100 people, 100 places, and a 100 events that have been verified now by non biblical means that used to be considered not true because it was only talked about in the Bible. You can trust the history and its accuracy,

but why do people fight it? Suppression of truth. We trust the trend. They don't actually pay attention to the evidence. Don't want to. In Italy, back in 2016,

a guy put GPS again. He was going to a wedding. Was 200 miles away. Put it in. He went to the wedding, got out. People warmly greeted him. He had a good time. He he danced with people. He he was even asked to be in family photos and all of that. And then way into it, someone asked, how do you know the bride? He goes, I don't. And that's when he finally admitted and and realized I'm at the wrong wedding.

But what's funny is it wasn't that far in. He didn't notice when he showed up and I goes, I know none of these people. He didn't pay attention when the he didn't even know the groom. He he watched the wedding. He watched the people walk up. How wouldn't he think? He's like, I don't know anybody up there. Why am I here?

He just assumed I'm in the right place because that's what the GPS told me. I'm here. I'm just dancing away and having a good time. And that's what a lot of us do in life. We're like, hey, you know what? I'm having a good time, and who cares if I'm in the wrong place? You can trust the historical accuracy

of the bible. Third thing, the prophetic fulfillment. The prophetic fulfillment. Do

you realize that there is over 2,000 prophecies with 300 over 300 of them about Jesus that are detailed in the old testament that have accurately been fulfilled? Accurately.

But yet a skeptic won't accept it. Matter of fact, skeptical scholars, it's why they keep trying to change the dates of when the new Old Testament was written. They try to say this had to be written later. Every piece of evidence shows it was written when it was written.

The Dead Sea Scrolls being the primary one, and yet some still hold on to nope, it couldn't have been. And you know why? Not because of any evidence. It's because if that was written when it was written, you can't explain 2,300 prophecies happening. Because what a prophecy really is is history given in advance.

The future, like it's telling you what's gonna happen. And it happened. And the only answer is it had to be written later, not because of evidence, but because people say I do not accept that that can be true. In in the face of the evidence. It's back to Romans one.

Suppress. You don't want it to be true. And you know, why do we not want it to be true? Why do so many people? Because if you realize there is a God, then you and I are accountable to that God. And we like to, you know, you do you. I just wanna do whatever I wanna do in the hell with everybody else.

We don't wanna be accountable. That's the heart of sin. That's why the Bible says for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. It's because of that.

I mean, just one example, you can go look it up. Go read Isaiah 66 verse eight or Ezekiel 37. This is one of them in the list, and it was one of these crazy ones, was it predicted that Israel was gonna you know, they're getting dragged off into captivity. They weren't listening to God. He goes, alright. You're getting overrun. You might be my people, but you've lost your country, and you got scattered.

But he promised in these passages that that just like this this visual of these dry bones coming back to life, he predicted and said, Israel will become a nation. They'll become a people again. And two thousand years later, almost two thousand years later, in 05/14/1948,

Israel, after almost two thousand years of not existing, after their people being scattered and implemented in other people,

enough of a people for two thousand years that when they got that back, they gathered from over a 100 countries and came back in force and became a nation again. You know how crazy that is? You know how many times that has happened? Just that one time.

In the history of mankind, there's never been a country, a people overrun and scattered that have gathered again and been a people again. Not one time. Not even like a Brett Favre kind of way, retiring and then coming back three or four times.

Not even in just a few years later. Never ever. Once countries are over and scattered, they never return. The bible said thousands of years ago before it happened, it's gonna happen, and then it did. And think about for all those thousands of people, they say that. They're so stupid. But it really did because

you can trust the prophetic fulfillment. It's there. The evidence is there. But like I said, we need to trust the truth, not what's trending. And the biggest trend is trust yourself. Trust yourself.

Like this guy in in The United Kingdom and back a few years ago got lost in an IKEA for three over three hours. But then again, who hasn't? Who hasn't?

But the problem was he got lost because he didn't he said he refused to listen to the signs that were clearly posted on how to get out. He said he trusted his own instincts. So instead of trust, the creators of IKEA,

the builders of the building, the designers of the inside that have clearly said this is the way, he goes, I think I'll figure it out on my own. And it said he wandered around, got hungry, probably got Swedish meatballs,

and and and then he got in frustration bought a chair. So that means he's still not lost, but he bought it. He's like grabbed a chair and just started dragging it with him. I think he dragged it because he got so tired. He's like, I'm not sure if there's always chairs where I'm at. So he could sit down and ignore another sign. I know it says go that way, but you know what? I'm gonna go this way instead.

And he just kept doing it and dragging around and dragging around, and it said he finally got out. The news report said this. He said, I finally got out when I followed a six year old that knew the way. It's kinda like the Bible says, the faith of a child.

And also it says Paul says that God is gonna use the simple to confound the wise. And what he meant by wise, there was the word for intelligent. Like, people are gonna be so smart that it's no good for them. They're gonna work themselves out of believing God by thinking they're so smart when it's actually quite simple.

The gospel is so simple that a six year old can understand, yet we tend to. And now I'm not just talking to skeptics here, guys. All of you that are believers, how much of God's word

have you sat there and said, I need to find a way to get around? And God's word says, go this way. And we're like, yeah. That just doesn't seem right. That that seems too hard. That seems worse. I think I'll go this way instead.

You know, there's a verse in the Bible that talks about it, multiple, in the book of Proverbs. It says there's a way that seems right to man, but at the end, it leads to death. That's not a threat from God. He's not like trying to be the godfather. You know, you've been going these ways, and they ain't right. So therefore,

Vinny and Vito are gonna take you out back and kill you. No.

What he's saying is there is a way that you're gonna look and go, it seems that that's gonna be harder what God was. I think it makes sense to go this way, and you trust the trend. And the trend is you trust yourself. And you go that way, and he says, you're not gonna find what you're looking for down there.

You're gonna be disappointed when it's all said and done. It's a warning of love. But why don't we listen? Because of what the Bible says our problem is, and the fact that we wanna suppress the truth. We wanna make God in our image, meaning we wanna be God. And so we struggle, and we miss the truth and follow the trend. The

next one is we can trust the archaeological confirmation.

So I've used archaeology already because archaeology goes along with history, but it is crazy about archaeological confirmation. I say it's funny. Luke nineteen forty

Luke nineteen forty says this. It says, it's when Jesus was going in and all the people were crying out and worshiping him on on on and and and and and the religious leader says, so you could tell your people to stop. And he says this, he said, if they kept quiet, the stones along the road would burst into cheers.

He says even the dirt would cry out. And guess what? You may not wanna believe in the reliability of the Bible, and deny it, and keep quiet, but the dirt cries out. There has been a total of over 25,000 documented discoveries archaeologically confirming scripture. Over 25,000.

Over and over and over and over again, the archaeology proves that what the Bible says is true, and people don't wanna accept it. But the stones are crying out. One of them is, you're not gonna believe this, until 1994, did you know that most skeptics

that they they they never doubted that what the Bible says is said. They they just don't wanna say it's this or not. And when it came to archaeology, they would often have like I said, if someone is listed in the Bible and not listed anywhere else, they believed it was a myth. And until 1994, most of these these skeptics

that are learned people said day King David was a myth because, well, you know, you've never seen any proof of them. The only thing you have proof is all of this reliable the most reliable ancient history document we have. I mean, if if if if Homer had said Jesus existed, they would probably believe it.

And then in 1994 in Tel Dan, the city Dan, an ancient city, they unearthed in the courtyard this this statue kind of thing, and it had an inscription on it, and it said, house of David, king of Israel. Dun dun dun. Now what are you gonna do? Here's another thing you said was a myth

just because you had a bias towards saying this can't be reliable. Another piece of evidence saying it is. What are we gonna do about that? Why does this keep happening? You know, the the craziest story I I I've heard is in 1995 in Pittsburgh, a guy like what was his name again? I wrote it down here. MacArthur Wheeler.

He he he he believed that lemon juice worked like invisible ink, and so he he rubbed it on his face and then robbed two banks. And he thought it would make him invisible, his face invisible to security cameras. Matter of fact, he was so confident in this, he smiled at every security camera in the banks he went to.

He immediately got arrested within an hour,

and they brought him into the question room, and he was kinda smug thinking there's no way. They don't have anything on me. They don't know my face. And then they put up the video and showed, hey, here you are. Oh, there you are again. There you again. You have a nice smile by the way, mister Wheeler.

And and and then he looked at it, was so shocked that literally this is what he blurted out. But I had the juice. That was his defense. He was so shocked like how can this be? This can't be. I had the juice.

And and and what's crazy about that is he just so believed it, it actually sparked further psychological study because this was an extreme of a now thing. They've confirmed that all of us deal with this. They found out this is actually a natural thing that happens in humans for some dumb reason. It's called the Dunning Kruger effect. Anybody ever hear of it? It it's it's been proven over and over again. When I read what it is, I said, you know what, that's just called watch me and my wife argue.

And and and what it is is a simple thing is they found that in us, the less competent we are on something, the more confident we act. We've all done it. You know, you and or you you won't admit it yourself, but you've all watched the new guy in a meeting in your office that doesn't know anything and he talks the most.

You know, that that is always happens. It's like it's don't know if it's a security thing. It's what is we just have a natural tendency that if we wanna believe something without looking at evidence and and we get challenged, we double down, we triple down, we just think we're right. Matter of fact, there's a chart on how this thing works. This is how they put it, the Dunning Kruger effect curve. It says, confidence and confidence. The know nothing phase is when you are at the peak of Mount Stupid, they call it.

And you sit up there acting like you know more than everybody else. This is this is exactly what the Bible described when it says, God will confound the wise with the simple. People that think they're smart, but they really don't have with they really don't know what's going on. And it's it's calling out 2,003

ago. It's describing these things that science is now understanding.

We naturally do this as a result of sin, as a result of the breaking down, as a result of we wanna believe what we wanna believe, so we get to the peak of Mount Stupid. You realize most religions kinda do it this way. That's why most people wanna discount Christianity. But if you look historically, Christianity has always been a truth based religion. It's always been here's the evidence, here's the history, here's what really happened. It's true. We've never argued that, well, you got your way, you got and it's more of a mystical inward journey. It's never been that.

It's always been, we will sit with the greatest thing. Because go to any you if you looked up the record of every time an apologist, a Christian doing something like me, only he's smarter in all this, and has debated the greatest atheist, the greatest skeptics, the greatest scientific minds of the day, the Christian wins

every debate. Every time. Because when you base it on the logic and the evidence, it goes that way. But why do people hold on? Because of this Dunning Kruger. We don't know. We won't look at the evidence, so we're on the peak of Mount Stupid. You know why? Because we hate what comes next, The valley of despair.

But I had the juice. And you realize you don't wanna admit it. This is called when I fight with my wife. She's figured it out. The more confident I act, she knows that I know I'm wrong. So now I can't win anymore. But then you gotta get down, and that's a hard pain. You gotta humble yourself to admit,

I'm not God. I don't know what's going on. I need to trust God. In this case, I need to trust that the word of God is the word of God, and points me to Jesus. Then you get up the slope of enlightenment, and eventually, you get to the plateau of sustainability in your life. That's a real thing.

And how many of us how many people out in life are like you're like, but I had the juice. You know, the Bible says there's gonna be people that stand before Jesus someday and say, but I did this. I was spiritual. I did these things, but you didn't know me.

You know that there's we if you don't really know Jesus and put your faith in him and really understand him, there's gonna be days you stand for God. Even if you came to church, even if you believe, but you kinda never really surrendered to Jesus, you just were putting together your own little plan. It's like basically saying you're gonna stand before him and say, I had the juice. And he goes, but you didn't have Jesus.

Do you really wanna find out that you're on the mount of stupidity when it's too late? Or do you wanna look honestly at the evidence? And the final piece of it is like, all this stuff on paper is so obvious,

but it's not the best piece of evidence we have. The best piece of evidence that this is all true is not on the pages. It's seen in the people that have been changed by the word of God. You can trust its transformative power.

It's like a medical study. When they study, it's like, if you look at the amount of people and how their lives have dramatically changed from the word of God and coming to know Jesus through it, and then applying the word of God to their life, it blows away anything that's ever existed for helping people. It is not even

close to how lives have been changed. Just like the video in the announcements. Over and over and over throughout history, the Bible has transformed lives. Matter of fact, I'll give you one example from history that's just powerful, but it happens over and over again.

I don't know if you've ever heard of the the story of the the bounty, the mutiny on the bounty. Mel Gibson made a movie about it back before he was crazy. And and it's back in the seventeen nineties.

It was a a British ship, and it was going down in the South Pacific trade, you know, and all that kind of stuff. And the crew, the captain was a little bit disciplined.

He was really hardcore. They didn't like him a lot because they didn't like being told what to do and to survive. He's actually an excellent captain, by the way, Captain Bly. They proved that by in the end, but but he the the crew was just mad him all the time, and then they get to the South Pacific, and the islands, the girls, none of them wore hardly any clothes. So all these guys from England are like, woah. And they would like hook up with them. So they're like, wow. They got these island girlfriends, like, gotta get back to work. You gotta back. And they got so mad because they wanna do what they've wanted to do. They got so sick of the captain telling them what to do. They mutinied, took the ship, got their girlfriends,

sailed off, and decided to start their own life, being able to do whatever they wanted to do. And it you know, and and and so they found a little island, Pitcairn Island, and they set up shop there, sunk the ships, no one would find them, and then proceeded to within ten years, every man was dead except for one.

Through drunkenness, stupidity, fighting, jealousy, trying to steal each other, like and and everybody just nobody would get along and do stuff, which duh.

Follow the evidence. What made you think if you established everything on no one's gonna tell us what to do, and now we're gonna go try to be a people together, and no one's gonna tell us what to do?

Matter of fact, that last guy was such a mess and a drunk and a problem and an attitude and and abusive that the women and the children, the amount of women they realized, wait, he's just one guy. They beat the snot out of him and kicked him out of their community, and he had to go live way out on the outskirts

by himself. And he groused around for a while, drinking and, like, you know, basically gonna die alone. And then he was going through some of the old stuff from the ship. He found the Bible. And he couldn't read really well, but he started reading it. He remembered going to church when he was younger. And as he read it,

he started to go, this is powerful. And he put his faith not in the juice, but in Jesus. And as he read it more, he learned how to read better, and it changed him.

All of a sudden, the women noticed with the kids, like, of sudden, there'd be a whole bunch of firewood collected and set right at the outskirt of their little village. He would go hunt, find something killed, and bring it and set it there for him. He'd go catch fish and and leave it there for him.

He he he just started to be kind and transformed. There was nothing that happened in his life other than him reading the bible. They accepted him back in. He taught them they they wanted to know. Their number one evidence is what changed you this dramatically?

And so he taught them and led them to Jesus and taught them the scripture, and they shared this bible. And in eighteen o eight, a US ship, the the Topaz, showed up and found these people on this island. And the captain reported in the log what we found was a God fearing community of love and grace, a beautiful community

that was transformed by a single Bible.

Guys, God says, Taste of me and see that I'm good. All you have to do is try it and you'll know it's true. But all the evidence is there too. Matter of fact, Peter talks about this Isaiah passage. He uses it. The grass withers, the flowers fall, but the word of God endures forever. In first Peter chapter one,

he's writing. He's an older man now, years later, done lopping people's ears off and denying Jesus. And he says this, for you have been born again, he's talking to the people he's writing to, but not to a life that will click quickly end. Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal living

word of God. As scriptures say, people are like grass. Their beauty is like flower in the field. It's the juice. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord remains forever. But then he adds one more line, and that word is the good news

that was preached to you. What's the good news? The good news, everything this book points to.

The good news is the gospel. The gospel is who Jesus is. We don't need the juice. We need Jesus. And so do you. And it doesn't matter how many times you come to church and try to do the juicy things that we say, but you need to surrender and put your faith not in yourself, not in something else,

but in Jesus alone because he's the only one that fixes our problem. Sin is a separation from God that we are born into, that we naturally wanna be God. So it doesn't matter what actual sin you do, it's all a result of not trusting God and going our own rebellious way. And God says that will keep you separated from this eternal life for all of eternity, but I came God himself

dove into humanity, came into our mess, and lived a life we could never live, lived the perfect life, died in our place to satisfy the justice of God because God will judge. The reason a lot of people suppress the truth is we are accountable before a holy God, whether you like it or not. And he came

so we can stand freely before God in a loving eternal relationship by dying on the cross, taking a death we can never come back from, resurrecting, beating death, and saying, give me your sin, trust in me, turn from the juice, and turn to me, and live from my love. Not for it, not do these nice things, just live from

trust the signs I put in the IKEA. The signs I put in there are not to make it worse, it's for to help you find how to get out. That's what the word of God is about. It's not harsh rules. It's not complicated. It's the way. But it starts with putting your faith in Christ.

So what I wanna do is I wanna pray again like I've done the last two weeks. And by the way, last two weeks, we had 1,112 people pray and say, I want Jesus. We've had a couple 100

already this weekend, which I didn't think there was anyone left. I figured either everybody surrendered or said, I am sick and tired of this guy telling me I need to surrender to Jesus, and they already went and found another church or just left. But apparently, there's plenty all pagans still in the room. So

I believe now is gonna be most. Some of you maybe waited for this week. Have you ever just surrendered?

Literally. I don't care how many times you've been to church. I don't care how many times you thought, well, maybe Jesus is the way. Have you ever just done what I'm gonna ask you to? Raise your hand in symbolic way and say, I'm handing Jesus my sin, and I'm taking his hand for life,

and I believe in that, not in myself. That the Bible says we need to confess and profess. That's how we turn to Jesus. That's what we need to do. Have you ever done that?

And if you haven't, here's your chance. I've shown you the evidence. You can go study all the more. There is so much. It's it's not even it's crazy how clear it is.

But I just wanna pray with some of y'all. So if you close your eyes, I'm gonna ask you to do this. If you want that Jesus, you're like, I'm ready. I'm ready to look at this evidence. I'm ready to surrender. I want Jesus. I want this life, this eternal life that Peter was talking about.

I'm gonna pray with you, but I want you to make the words your own words in your heart. And I'm gonna ask you to do that symbolic thing. Reach up and hold your hand up right now, nice and high. Heads bowed, eyes closed. Just hold the hands up. I see him. Keep him up high. Don't be ashamed.

And take Jesus' hand. Hand him your sin, and take his hand right now and hold it up as we pray. With all these hands raised up, Lord, let's just pray. Just pray something like this. Dear Jesus, thank you. Thank you that even though I went my own way,

even though I was like it described in your words, someone who suppressed the truth and I I chased the trend of trusting myself. Right now, in the best way I know how, I'm handing you my sin, my brokenness, and I'm taking your hand for the life that you offer. I believe that you died for me and rose again to give me life,

Now help me to hold your hand for the rest of my life and learn each and every day more and more about what it means to live from that incredible love you have for me. Thank you. Amen. A ton of hands just went up again. Welcome to the family. Welcome to the family.

Thank you for joining us for service online at Rock Point Church this week. Make sure to follow us on social media so you can stay connected with everything happening here at Rock Point.