How We Got Our Bible L4

Opening

Would you open us in prayer this morning? Amen. Okay, let's go to John chapter 1. John chapter 1. Okay. John chapter 1. Look at verse 1. We finished with the Old Testament last week. And John chapter 1 verse 1. In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God and the Word was God. So the Word is a name for Jesus Christ. Now look at John chapter 3. John chapter 3. And verse 36. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. And he that believeth not the Son shall not see life. Excuse me, that's the wrong verse. Verse 34. I apologize. For he whom God hath sent, speaking of Jesus Christ, speaketh the words of God.

For God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him. Where we finished up last week was that you had 39 or the Jews considered 22. But the same books in the Old Testament that Jesus Christ confirmed as being Scripture. And put his stamp of approval on them. Not only did he do that, but the apostles did it. And so that Old Testament, as it was found at the time when Christ showed up, was called Scripture over 50 times in the New Testament. And so all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. Now when we get to the New Testament, we're dealing with some similar things and then a couple things that are different.

And so we'll just go over really quick a couple of the facts of New Testament transmission. And transmission means the passing along, the giving of one to another. I think we mentioned that last week. It was given over a period of 33 years. That's 63 years, excuse me, 33 to 96 AD. We don't know exactly when Matthew wrote his Gospel, but it was very early after the resurrection. Covered a period going back 33 years. The Gospels originally transmitted orally before being officially recorded. And that's important to know. Look at Luke chapter 1. Luke chapter 1. And what you'll see here, if you've been paying attention, is that there's similarities to how the Scripture developed in the New Testament and how it developed in the Old Testament.

The Old Testament, right, you had the Book of Job, which was 300 or 400 years before Moses. You had all of the things that were spoken in Genesis that weren't written down officially until Moses. And so you had the Gospel, and it moved about by word of mouth first. Luke chapter 1 and verse 1. For as much as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most assuredly believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word. Luke is talking about the disciples that walked with the Lord. It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus.

That Theophilus means lover of God. And so, Luke is collating, right, both written and oral tradition. Now, we're not talking over a period of hundreds of years. We're talking over just a short period of time, okay? Because we know that Luke was not one of the original disciples. He worked with the Apostle Paul. All right? It was originally written in Koine Greek. That's the language of the street, the common Greek language. Not classical Greek, like, Homer and Herodotus and Thucydides and all those guys wrote in. All right? None of its original autographs survived. Not that we know of. We don't have any originals. All right? None of its passages, I mean, excuse me, some of its passages were pure revelation.

In other words, God just directly revealed to them what was going on. And similar to the Old Testament, right? You got the Lord telling Moses to write things in Genesis that he wasn't there. God had to show it to him. Right? And so, there's pure revelation. And the same in the New Testament. All right? Some of its originals were edited collations by latter prophets, like Luke. All right? It was copied in Greek over a period of 1500 years starting in the first century. That's up to the era of the printing press. It was copied over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. You have a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy.

Okay? It was copied in Latin and Syriac. Right? The first two languages that it was translated into. And we'll get into that much more as soon as we finish the New Testament introduction. For 1400 years starting in the second century AD. So, very soon after the last apostle died, the Bible was translated into old Syriac, Syrian or Aramaic. And also Latin, because of course the Roman Empire. Christ and the disciples spoke Aramaic, so many of the original passages were themselves translations. And that's interesting to note. The Bible was written in Greek, but Christ and the apostles spoke old Syriac or Aramaic. It's basically a dialect of Hebrew. Okay? So, that's an interesting thing to note.

It assumed its complete form 200 years after Christ. Your Old Testament assumed its complete form 1,100 years after Moses. Right? So, the difference between the Old and New Testament is the New Testament is formed a little closer to our time than the Old Testament was. Right? So, there's more room for people to pick apart how it was put together. Well, why didn't they put this book in? Well, why did they leave this book out? Well, why did they put Hebrews in? Why did they put James in and leave out the epistle of Barnabas or the first epistle of Clement? Right? We have a few more records of that than we might with the Old Testament.

But it followed the same pattern. Right? Some things were said, some things were written, and then it assumed its final form a little while later. Right? And so, as we've talked about before, God has to be involved in more than just the speaking. God has to be involved in the development of it. If he's not, the whole thing is shot from the beginning. Right? You have to remember what we talked about last week. That scripture is held up by two pillars. Inspiration and preservation. Right? So, in the Old Testament, right, you had a scribe sitting there chronicling what David did. And chronicling what Solomon did. And they would write these records down.

Well, Jeremiah, Samuel, the prophets, they didn't take all of those records and put them all into the Bible. Right? They, by under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, took some of those records and you have the book of 1st and 2nd Chronicles. You don't have everything that was written about David and everything that was written about Jeroboam. Does that make sense? All right? God did the same thing in the New Testament. What did John say? Look at the end of John. The book of John, the last chapter. and so you'll have people say, well, what about the lost gospel of Judas and the lost gospel of this? There's a reason God didn't put that stuff in there.

Right? And look at John chapter 21, verse 25. And there are also many other things which Jesus did, I bet. The which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that the world itself couldn't contain the books. Right? So there's more written. I mean, there's more known about Jesus Christ. There's more that he did. There's more that his apostles did. But just like the Old Testament, God only chose specific words to be his divine inspired revelation. Okay? So the New Testament follows the pattern of the Old Testament in that regard. Okay. Now, the New Testament, just like the Old Testament, it starts out the same way. Right? In the beginning, the Old Testament, God created the heaven and the earth.

The Lesson

And then God said, let there be light. And the New Testament starts out the same way. It starts with the words of God. Right? And of course, those words of God, John chapter 3, verse 34. What are they? They're the words of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, when he spoke, spoke the very words of God. Why? Because he was God. He was God. Right? And so, and there was a lot of speaking going on. Matthew 17, 5. While he spake, behold, a bright cloud. This is the Mount of Transfiguration. Overshadowed them. And behold, a voice out of the cloud, which said, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased.

So, just as Mount Sinai thundered, right? When God delivered the law to Moses, there was a lot of thundering going on when Jesus Christ showed up. Right? The sky erupted with an angelic chorus and said, glory to God in the highest. On earth, peace on earth, good will toward men. Right? There was a lot of speaking going on. God was speaking from heaven. John the Baptist was speaking for God. Jesus Christ was speaking the words of God. The angel appeared to Mary. The angels appeared to the shepherds. Right? So, there was this spiritual upheaval. Right? This interaction between the spiritual world and the physical world when Jesus Christ showed up.

Right? And you see the verses. Jesus Christ said in John 6, 63. He said, the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. Now, when it comes to the inspiration of the New Testament, just like the old. Alright? Jesus Christ spoke the very words of God. And I think that kind of goes without saying this morning. Right? We understand that. But not only that, those words, those words that he spoke were given to the apostles and their followers. Look at Matthew chapter 10. Well, you can read it right there. It says, Jesus Christ said to them, he said, For it is not ye that speak, but the spirit of your father, which speaketh in you.

So, Jesus Christ promised inspiration to his apostles. So, we learned in the last couple lessons how the prophets were inspired. Right? How Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah the words of the Lord. He said, the spirit of God spake by me. The same thing happened with the New Testament apostles and prophets. They spoke the very words of God. So, and it's okay, but it's amazing. But in your New Testament, you have, some of you have a Bible where the words of Christ are in red. They're in red. Right? But technically, right? They're all red. Because they're all the words of Christ. That's what he says. What did he say?

He said, it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost. Now, Mark chapter 16, the word did initially, it initially spread, not by writing, but by preaching, just like the Old Testament. Okay? What? Ye shall receive power. Matthew 28, after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you. Ye shall be witnesses unto me. Look at Acts chapter 8. Acts chapter 8. And this is how the gospel initially spread. So, you got Noah, and he's putting clean beasts into the ark. Right? That's hundreds of years before the Lord gave the law and told them about clean beasts. Right? And so, there were truths that were spread by word of mouth before they were ever, God officially had them written down.

The Bible calls that the fullness of time. Okay? And so, and that's why we say again, God has to get involved in every process of this. Not just the initial filling the prophet with the Holy Ghost. So, look at Acts chapter 8, verse 4. They that were scattered abroad went everywhere. It wasn't writing the word. Right? It was preaching the word. Okay? Well, then what happened? Well, just as in the Old Testament, but in this case, it happened within one century. It happened within one century. All of the inspired books were written in the first century. It wasn't spread out over many, over a millennia, as in Israel's history. All of the words of God were given for the New Testament in the first century. they say Revelations, the last one written, 95 or 96 AD.

So, that's just 60 years, six decades after Christ's resurrection. So, very quickly, and it finished with the apostles and prophets. It didn't go on after that. And we'll show you that. But eventually, men began to write this record down. And that's what we just read in the book of Luke. Luke said, hey, people have been talking about this. I'm going to write it down and tell you about it. Okay. Now, just like the Old Testament, in the New Testament, initially, God used special revelation. Right? What did we see in the Old Testament? People had visions. Right? People had dreams. God appeared to people. There were miracles. It's the same thing in the New Testament.

Of course, Jesus Christ appeared. The angels appeared. An angel appeared. The angel of the Lord appeared to Paul in Acts chapter 26. And said, but rise and stand upon thy feet. For I have appeared unto thee for this purpose. To make thee a minister and a witness. Both of these things which thou hast seen. Okay? Now, he also revealed himself by direct speaking. John chapter 12. Jesus Christ says, Father, glorify thy name. There came a voice from heaven saying, I have both glorified it. And will glorify it again. The Lord spoke to people. He was speaking to people directly. Acts chapter 8. The Spirit said. And you'll see this over and over again in the New Testament.

You'll just see, the Lord said. The Lord spoke. The Spirit said. The Spirit said unto Philip, go near and join thyself to this chariot. Remember Paul, when he got saved? He fell off his horse and he said, Lord, what will thou have me to do? Or he said, who art thou, Lord? And what did that voice from heaven say? I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. That's a voice. So, in the early days of the New Testament period, God was speaking through people and God was speaking directly to people. Say, why is this important? It's important because we want to know, is that how it works today? Right? Is that, because you ever have people say to you, God told me to do this?

And you're like, I don't think he did. Pretty sure he didn't. Right? Revelation 22. He said unto me these sayings. This is how the book ends. Right? That angel says, he said unto me, these sayings are faithful and true. The Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angels to show unto his servants the things which must shortly be done. So, all the way to the very last book written last in the New Testament, Revelation 22.6. You have God speaking through an angel directly to his apostle. Directly to his prophets. Okay? So, he did that. Not only that. Right? But he used visions. Lots of visions. Acts 2.17. Peter says about those last days that they were in.

The Lord says, I'll pour out my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and daughters shall prophesy. Your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams. Right? Acts 9.10. There was a certain disciple, Damascus, named Ananias. The Lord said unto him, in a vision. Right? Peter had a vision. In Acts chapter 10, where that sheet was let down by the corners. Why did he have that vision? Right? That vision. Do you guys remember the story about the sheet let down by the corners? Okay, what were they? There were unclean beasts in there. And the Lord said, rise, Peter, kill and eat. Peter's like, not so, Lord.

Well, why did the Lord have to do that? Well, Romans 14 hasn't been written yet. Right? Every creature of God is good and nothing to be refused if it's received with thanksgiving in 1 Timothy. That's not written yet. What is the Lord doing? He's revealing something to Peter. Right? That's revelation. Right? Why is he doing this? He's doing this because the New Testament isn't completed yet. Okay? And so he used visions. Right? Over and over. In fact, Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12, I shall come to visions and revelation of the Lord. Paul was given visions. God gave Paul visions and direct revelation. What's Paul saying in Galatians 1? He says, the gospel which was given to me was not after man, but I received it by revelation of Jesus Christ.

After Paul got saved, he went to Arabia. Right? Spent three years there hanging out with the resurrected Savior and the Lord was teaching him. That's why Paul's epistles are like, ooh, where'd that come from? Well, it came from Jesus Christ. In fact, in 1 Timothy 6 verse 3, Paul calls his words the words of Jesus Christ. See, that's the thing about the Bible. You have to believe what it says about itself or you have to dump it. I mean, it's one or the other. Right? It's one or the other. Okay? So he used visions over and over. All right? What else did he use? Well, did we skip one? Yeah, we skipped one.

That's a fun one. Right? They were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues. What's he say in Acts 2? As the Spirit gave them utterance. What was he doing? Look. The Gospel, unlike, and this is important, the Gospel, unlike in the Old Testament. Okay. So in the Old Testament, you had one nation. Romans chapter 3 verse 2, the oracles of God were committed to the Jews. All right? That nation stood at the crossroads of three continents. Asia, Africa, and Europe. Right? Japheth, Shem, Ham. Okay? Every major old empire. Every world empire. Right? All the big ones from antiquity. Egypt, and Assyria, and Babylon, and Persia, and Greece, and Rome.

Right? They all crossed through there. Right? The Jews were specifically ordained of God to bring the light to the world. Right? Even the Jewish mind. Okay? The Jewish mind is not the fanciful out there mind of India. The Eastern mind. Nor is it the hard, completely hard, Stoic mind of the Greek. Right? That Middle Eastern mind is right in the middle. Right? It's got a little bit of the Western and a little bit of the Eastern. And that Jewish book speaks to both. Right? So, God placed Israel there. And then, like the Queen of Sheba, people would go to that city set on a hill. You're the light of the world.

Right? The New Testament, the Gospel, Jesus Christ, right before he goes to heaven, he says, he doesn't say, stay here and be a light. He says, what? Go. Right? So, the Gospel was designed to go into all the world. So, immediately on Pentecost, Peter, you got these people in Jerusalem from all over the empire, and they don't speak Hebrew. So, the apostles get up and they start speaking Hebrew, and the Spirit translates it into another language. Right? That God used to spread his word in the initial phases of the church. Okay? So, the Spirit spoke through tongues. All right? How else did he speak? Just like in the Old Testament, there were prophets all over the place in the New Testament.

Okay? You remember Zacharias? Right? When he wrote on it, he's scratching on the tablet there. But, right? Zacharias, when John was born, his tongue was loosed. Right? Peter filled him, and he prophesied. So, we don't think about this. We always think of the term prophets as an Old Testament thing. We think of Elijah. We think of long bearded men. Right? Living in the desert and offending people. Right? That's what we think of prophets. But, the New Testament was full of prophecy all over the place. Jesus Christ was a prophet. Right? We know that. He's that prophet that should come into the world. But, Zacharias prophesied in Luke 1. Right? Paul laid his hands on those guys in Acts 19, and they prophesied.

Right? Paul even says to the Corinthians, right, who were messing around with the sign gifts. He said, sure, it's okay if you speak in tongues. Corinth was a very cosmopolitan area. Lots of Jews there. Tongues in the early church was a very effective means of reaching people. Right? People came to that port city from all over the place. So, he said, yeah, it's good that you speak in tongues, but I would rather that you prophesied. Acts 29, as we entered in the house of Philip, the same man had four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy. So, you had prophets. Lots of prophecy going on. Right? Peter's words were prophecy. Paul's words were prophecy.

Right? But here's the problem, and you want to make a note of this. All right? All of these revelations. What? Tongues, prophecy, visions. Right? Spread by word of mouth would have the same difficulties with accuracy and corruption as the revelation of the Old Testament. Right? what you can get? what you have without Genesis 6, 7, and 8? You have the Epic of Gilgamesh. Right? You have old, heathen tales of a flood. The Bible tells you the truth of it. Right? So, the same thing would work for the New Testament. You have Jesus Christ, and he's performing miracles, and of course, he dies for our sins. He rises from the dead, and people are going everywhere, and they're spreading it by word of mouth.

And the gospel is preached orally, and the Lord is revealing himself to people in visions. But it's the same problem of transmission that you would have in the Old Testament. Right? It eventually gets corrupted. It's the telephone game. You tell her, tell her, tell her, tell her. And eventually, it's passed down. And what do you believe? Well, you believe what the crows believe. That a coyote was walking along a ridge, and saw a tuft of grass in the ground, and yanked it out of the earth. Or yanked it out of the ground, and that was the first manor. That was our globe that we live on. Right? All of these corrupted legends that the written record sets straight.

Okay? And so, what do you need? You need the same thing that you had in the Old Testament. You need a written record. Now, there are, there were noted apostles and prophets in the New Testament. Okay? The twelve were, of course, apostles. Right? Barnabas and Paul were called apostles. So, when we think of the apostles, what do we think of? We think of, Simon, Peter, Andrew, James, his brother John, Philip, Thomas, Matthew, James, the son of Alphaeus, Thaddeus, and Simon, Judas, and Bartholomew. We think of the first twelve. Right? But Paul was an apostle. Barnabas was an apostle. Simeon, Lucius, Manan, Barnabas, and Saul were all called prophets in Acts 13.

The Lord's brethren, Jude and James, are called apostles in 1 Corinthians and Galatians. Judas and Silas are called apostles in Acts 15 and 1 Thessalonians 2. Agabus was a prophet. Right? Luke is even called an apostle. Right? And so, Luke wrote the third gospel in Acts, and Mark was said to have sat down with Peter to write the second gospel. All of these guys, we'll talk about this later, but there were a lot of apostles and prophets in the establishment of the church. And this is why this is important. God used the apostles and prophets to establish revelation and New Testament doctrine. All right? Do I have the verses up there?

Good. These are important. It's important that you get this morning. All right? This is what Paul said. He said, God has set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets. So he says first apostles, secondarily prophets. He mentions that when he talks about the gifts to the church. All right? Now he talks about it later. In Ephesians chapter 2, when he talks about the church body as a whole, he says we're built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Okay? Well, you guys that build, what do about a foundation? A foundation is absolutely essential, but it's not the whole house. Right? Okay. Right? Look what he says in Ephesians 3, 5.

He says, speaking of his mystery, which in other ages was not made known of the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. And so the Lord revealed new truths to the apostles and prophets. And by the way, that's why they had to have signs to prove that they were from God, because they were coming out saying stuff that people were like, you got that out of there? Right? I thought when he was talking about he's despised and rejected of men, that was the nation of Israel. That's what they teach. They don't teach us Jesus Christ. Right? They needed the Holy Spirit of God to put a stamp of approval on them.

Right? To back them up. And so Ephesians chapter 4, verse 11, he says, and he gave some apostles and some prophets, not everyone, and some evangelists and some pastors and preachers. So in the beginning of the church, God gave them apostles and prophets. But he did not give apostles and prophets to the entire body of Christ. We don't have them today. We had them then. God used them to establish the church. Just like we don't have someone walking around like Elijah saying, God just told me this. Why? Because we have the Bible. We have the Old Testament now. The Lord closed the book. It's done. Okay? And the same thing happened in the New Testament.

Okay? I'll show you this. All right? As in the Old Testament, the apostolic ministry disappeared when the Bible was completed. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 12. Excuse me. Yeah. 2 Corinthians chapter 12. Are you following me this morning? It's very important. We're going somewhere with this. All right? 2 Corinthians chapter 12. What are we talking about? We're talking about the inspiration of God, right, in those early apostles and prophets. These men that spoke and wrote the words of God. They had a special connection. Look at 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians chapter 12. Okay? And look at verse. Now this is review to some of you, but not to all of you.

So here we go. 2 Corinthians 12. 12. Paul says this. Truly the signs of a what? We're wrought among you in all patience and signs and wonders and mighty deeds. See, the apostles, because they were special, because they spoke the word of God, words of God. Right? They had signs to back them up. To prove that they were who they said they were. Right? The Jews require a sign. What sign? Moses showed up, right, with a sign to Israel. What sign showest thou us? Okay? And so Paul was a bona fide apostle. All right? But, and by the way, Paul healed. Right? Now I want you to look at 2 Timothy chapter 4.

2 Timothy. Well, look, on your way to 2 Timothy, look at Colossians. Look at Colossians chapter 4. Look at Colossians chapter 4. And look what he says here. In Colossians chapter 4. At, toward the end of his ministry, when Paul was a prisoner, he traveled with somebody. Right? And look who he traveled with. Colossians 4.14. Luke, the beloved what? Physician. Paul traveled with a doctor. Why? He had an infirmity in his flesh. Right? So, a guy that has the apostolic sign doesn't need a doctor traveling with him. Right. A guy that can raise the dead, a guy that can heal the sick, doesn't need a doctor traveling with him. Look at 2 Timothy chapter 4.

2 Timothy chapter 4. And look what Paul says here. 2 Timothy chapter 4. Verse 20. Erastus abode at Corinth, but Trophimus have I left at Miletum. What's he say? Sick. Right? What happened? Well, the apostolic sign ministry is wearing out. It wore out with miracles and it wore out with tongues. You don't have them anymore. Right? They were part of a special thing. And why is that? Revelation chapter 2. Right? Last book in your Bible written. Now, there's churches today that profess to have apostles. Right? They profess to have men that, there's a church in Salt Lake that has a bunch of old white guys. Right? And what do they do?

They profess to speak the words of God. Right? There's a holy sea. There's a holy sea in Italy. In Rome. Right? And there's a chair there that they call St. Peter's chair. And when the papa speaks off that chair, they call it ex cathedra. Out of the chair. And when he speaks out of the chair, they believe that's actually God speaking. Right? Oh, yeah. And that's what he's got on his hat. Right? In the person of Christ. Now, where did I say go? Revelation 2. Right? But look at Revelation 2. And look at verse 2. I know thy works. Last book of the Bible. 95 AD. And thy labor and thy patience.

And how thy canst not bear them which are evil. And thou hast tried them which say they are what? Apostles. And are not. And have found them lying. I don't care. I know. Someone has a vision. He sees a 90 foot Jesus. And what did that 90 foot Jesus tell him? If I don't raise 10 million dollars for this cathedral. Right? God's going to kill me. That kind of stuff. Right? Those are phony balonies. Right? That's what those are. Phony balonies. And the apostles and prophets had a special ministry. They were the foundation of the church. When you get to the end of it, the Lord doesn't use them anymore.

We walk by faith and not by sight. There's a reason for that. Alright? Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 13. 1 Corinthians chapter 13. 1 Corinthians 13. And look what he says here in verse 8. 1 Corinthians chapter 13. Thomas 13. 2 Corinthians chapter 13. 2 Corinthians 1. 2 Corinthians 14. 2 Corinthians 17. 3 Corinthians 15. 4 Corinthians 15. 5 Corinthians 15. Chapter 13. 4 Corinthians 15. 5 Corinthians 15. 5 Corinthians 16. 5 Corinthians 15. Question 12. 5 Corinthians 15. 6 Corinthians 16. 6 Sophia. 6 Corinthians 15. 7 Genesis 12. 6 Corinthians 16. 8 Corinthians 16. For we know in part and prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be what?

So God, there's a time for this stuff. And that time is not now. That time's not now. Why? Because now we have the word of God. what John said? Well, what John said at the end of his book? He made the same command for his book that Moses made for his. If you add, don't add or take away from anything that's written in this book. OK, and so those apostles and prophets, they were there for a specific reason. Now, let's see John 14 and we'll end here. John chapter 14. All right. The words of Christ were in his apostles. All right. So we know that those words in red are the words of God.

But what about the other words? What about the other words? Look what look what Jesus Christ himself said. Wouldn't it have been something to hear him speak? What a thing. I got my favorite preachers, but none of them are perfect. the thing about Jesus Christ, you never had to be like, OK, was that him or was that the truth? Was that his personality? Was that just his opinion? No, never. It was all good. You could just soak it up like a sponge. You didn't have to be like this. Right. No. What a beautiful thing. Look at John chapter 14. Look what he says here. He's talking about going away. He's going to heaven.

Right. Verse 26. But the comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall what? Teach you all things. Now look what he says. And bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I've said unto you. So, right, so Bart Ehrman and all the all the all of the neoconservatives and all of the rationalists, they all say, well, those disciples sat down and wrote the word of God 20, 30 years after they were walking with him. Nobody remembers. Well, that's true. If I wrote you about my childhood, I'd mess a lot of it up. But what did the Lord say? He says he's going to bring all things to your remembrance.

So when Matthew sat down, he wrote exactly what God wanted him to. Right. That's a promise of Jesus Christ. Right. He said, what about human error? That's why you have to have God involved. If you don't, you're in trouble right from the get go. Right from the get go. OK, let's look. Are you following me now? OK, really quickly now. It's that the Holy Ghost would teach his words to them. Now look at John 16. Look at John chapter 16. And look what the Lord says in verse. Where did I say go there? Oh, yeah. Verse. I don't know what I have a typo there. But look what he says in verse 12.

Closing

I have many things to say unto you. But you cannot bear them now. So what's Christ say? He says Christ is about to go to the cross here. He says, but I got some things to tell you. But you can't handle them yet. They don't have the indwelling Holy Spirit yet. Look what it says in verse 13. How be it when he, the spirit of truth, has come. Right? He will guide you into all what? Truth. For he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak. Now look what he says. And he will what? What do we call that? Show you things to come.

What's that? That's the sure word of what? That's prophecy. That's revelation. He's going to show you things to come. Did he show him things to come? Oh, you better believe he showed him things to come, man. All right? Now, go to John 17. This is Christ's high priestly prayer. So Jesus Christ added additional prophecy to his words. The apostles, now this is what's important. Look at John 17. This is what we call the high priestly prayer of Christ. John said, what are we talking about? We're talking about the transmission of the words of God. We know that the prophets spoke the word of God. We know that Jesus Christ spoke the words of God.

But how did they get from them to us? Okay? John 17, verse 6. He says, I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. Thine thy were. And thou gavest them me. And they have kept thy, look at it, underline it. What? Thy word. 17. Now have they known all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. For I have given unto them the what? Is that capital W or little w? Yeah, little words. Words. Not just ideas. Words. Not just ideas. Words. And thou hast, they have received, and I've known surely that I came from thee. Verse 14. Look what he says in verse 14.

I have given them thy what? Word. Right? So he gave them his words. Not just a message. His very words. John. Now what are his, what are, look what he says here in verse 17. Sanctify them through thy what? Truth. Thy word is truth. What did he say in John 16 and John 14? The spirit will guide you into all what? Truth. Right? So what is truth? His word is truth. What else is truth? If it's not, what? Fact check? Snopes? Right? This is truth or nothing is truth. And he said he will guide you into all truth. So the only thing that is absolute truth is this. There's other true things.

Right? But it can all be skewered. Right? I judge all truth by this truth. I judge the border crisis by this truth. I judge your favorite politician by this truth. I judge everyone's favorite bloggers by this truth, not the other way around. This is truth. Thy word is truth. And he tells the disciples, I will guide you into all truth. Right? This is absolute truth. There's other true things. Right? But I'm not staking my life on it. Okay? Now look what he says here. You follow me? Verse 18. What's he say? As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the what?

So not only did Christ promise his words to the disciples. Right? He promised that word would sanctify them, purify them, set them apart. Verse 20. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their what? Through their what? Through their laying on of hands? Right? Through them passing on apostolic authority? No. For those that believe, the true succession of the church is the succession of the truth of the word. Right? Not some guy ordaining another guy and saying, we have the truth and you don't. Through, that's really important, through their word that they may all be one. So, the words that he gave them would sanctify the church.

John 17. Now those guys that he's talking to right there, those guys that he's praying for, they wrote nine New Testament books. They wrote Matthew, John, James, 1st and 2nd Peter, 1st and 2nd and 3rd John, and Revelation. They're converts. They're immediate converts. Right? Men that accompanied with them wrote four books. Mark, or John Mark. Church tradition. And Irenaeus of Leone says that he wrote it with the help of Peter. We don't know if that's true. Luke. Luke wrote, right? The book of Luke. The book of Acts. And then Jude, the Lord's brother. Right? So, these guys that he's talking to here, they're responsible for those books. Now, there's only one other guy.

The one other guy is Paul, who's called the apostle born out of due time. Born out of due time. Okay? And we'll talk about that next week. And so, with the death of the last apostle came the end of that vision, sign, direct speaking ministry. Right? That which is perfect has come. John says in his third epistle, he says that we have the truth. Right? So, the truth is passed down. Now, we'll finish that up. We'll finish that up next week and then get into how it got from, the copies and how it got to us. Father, we love you. We thank you for the word of God. I pray that you would bless the next service.

Thank you for your truth. Help us to hold it dear. In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen. Okay. God bless you. You're dismissed.