Valid Faith – 2 – Can I Trust the Bible?

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Intro – Jonathan Hiesberger

ME:

My name is Jonathan Hiesberger. I’m from Waco, TX. Born and raised. I went to Waco High School. That’s where I met Pastor.

School teacher by profession, Year 23 of teaching high school SPED/Math. Pray for our teachers!!

My faith is HUGELY important to me.

God has done great things in my life. There have been battles. One thing I’ve learned through trials/struggles

I NEED THE WORD OF GOD IN MY LIFE.

People who haven’t known me very long might be surprised

-Dark times

-Negative mindsets

-Anxiety, Depression…
-Worry, fear

The only thing that sees me standing? God’s Word.

God’s Word has sustained me through all these battles, but I have had to hold on to and not doubt God’s word.

Through these storms I had to learn to REALLY trust God’s Word.

Maybe today you might be wondering “can I really trust God’s Word?

We are living in an age where we are having trouble trusting the voices of authority speaking into our lives.

-People no longer trust traditional institutions

-Trust in media is at an all time low

-AI deepfakes and content that looks real but is not.

-Church leaders.

People are asking: “Who can I trust?”

That distrust reaches the Bible itself.

DO AMERICANS TRUST THE BIBLE?

-Only 36% of Americans say the Bible is accurate in the principles it teaches.

–1 in 5 Americans believe the Bible was written to control or manipulate people.

That is a big divide.

People are asking questions like:

“Has it been changed?”

“Who decided what went in it?”

“Was it written to control people?”

People are basically asking: “Can I trust the Bible?” 

TRUST is a BIG ISSUE – That is why I named this message… 

Valid Faith Week 2: Can I Trust the Bible? Scriptures and Reliability

If you have been struggling with this, you’re not alone. I see many Christians who are wrestling with this topic. Social Media. It’s ok to ask the questions.

It’s ok to engage with the evidence. After today, I believe I can show you there is a REASON for your HOPE.

1 Peter 3:15 NIV

I want to give you some reasons for your hope.

I want to talk to you about why God’s Word is trustworthy. 

We know the Bible says that it is reliable

The grass withers and the flowers fall,

but the word of our God endures forever.” – Isaiah 40:8, NIV

God’s Word is here and it’s not going anywhere

The Lord said to me, “You have seen correctly, for I am watching to see that my word is fulfilled.” – Jeremiah 1:12, NIV

God is active in watching over and superintending His Word. 

Luke 1:37, NIV: “For no word from God will ever fail.”

Angel Gabriel testifies that God’s word is UNFAILING.

What does all this mean?

God has declared that His Word is Reliable.

Think of things in your life that are reliable. 

Whether things or people, You feel like you can put COMPLETE trust in them. 

God’s Word is even MORE reliable.

God’s Word is Reliable Because of the Preserved Witness of the Early Church

The scriptures we have in your New Testament – Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the letters of the apostles including Paul

Jesus words, Jesus’ teachings

Who witnessed these things? Those who walked with Jesus, saw His miracles, saw His death, burial, and resurrection.

Apostles – trusted eyewitnesses wrote gospels and Letters – received in the churches, shared in the churches, copied, copied again

They handed this collection of writings down to us and testified that it was really the writings of inspired men of God who Jesus had spoken with and spent time with. 

If you want to know what they witnessed, it is written in YOUR bible. They saw the early things that happened in the new testament church and they wanted you to know. God inspired them to write those things for your benefit.

We can trust the Bible because of their testimony.

God’s Word is reliable because it is preserved in 

• Greek manuscripts 
• Ancient versions in different languages
• Quotations outside the Bible

Manuscripts are simply ancient documents (papyrus, parchments)

Plants/animal skins                  Scrolls/Books

Mentioned copies before

Bible original written in ancient Greek

Maybe 100? Maybe 500?

More than 5,800 Greek New Testament manuscripts exist.

These range from small fragments to nearly complete Bibles.

5,800!

They wanted to get the WORD to as many people ASAP

But not everyone spoke Greek

More than 18,000+ additional manuscripts exist in other ancient languages.

• Old Latin
• Aramaic
• Syriac
• Coptic
• Armenian
• Ethiopian
• Gothic

The Early church wanted to bring the saving message to the WHOLE WORLD and we have the manuscripts to prove it.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

People liked to write about Jesus. They lived in a hostile, pagan world and were defending their faith.

Writers outside the Bible provide more than one million quotations from the New Testament.

1,000,000 quotations in the years immediately following the apostles. 

Imagine something we hope never happens – imagine all the manuscripts disappear – all the Greek, ancient versions, etc

We would still have Bible. Why? 

These quotations are so extensive that scholars have argued that virtually the entire New Testament could be reconstructed from them, with fewer than a dozen verses being exceptions.

The New Testament Has Extraordinary Historical and Manuscript Evidence

large quantity of ancient manuscripts

ALSO early date of biblical manuscripts. 

We have manuscripts and manuscript fragments go back very close to the time of the original writings- to the life of Jesus and the apostles

Compare that to other ancient writings

Herodotus’ History – we have 8 manuscripts 1350 years after they were written

Julius Cesar’s Gallic Wars – 10 documents 900 years later

Tacitus’ Historys and Annals – 9 manuscripts 750 years later

New Testament: 5800+ manuscripts

Fragment: 30-50 years after original

Most of NT: 150 years after original

All of NT: 250 years after original

The New Testament has far greater manuscript attestation than other ancient literature.

If manuscript quantity and age alone disqualified the New Testament, virtually all ancient historical writings would face the same problem.

If you don’t have the Bible, you don’t have anything.

If you doubt Jesus existed, how can you believe in Julius Ceasar?

Modern scholars don’t doubt that Jesus existed. 

We have more copies than any other ancient work. PERIOD.

What about the 1 in 5 people that manipulate?

1. BUT how do we know it hasn’t changed over time?
2. The fact there is all these manuscripts show it hasn’t changed. 
3. If there was huge changed we would see it in the manuscripts

If I had time I could go into detail about the very early fragments, 

Very early Greek copies, so autographs are even early

Found in different lands from which they are written

And they are the same as what is in your Bible!

Not the telephone game

That’s not how the Bible came to you.

Thousands of manuscripts received from the churches they were written to being copied

Found in completely different countries and lands

With the most Ancient agreeing with the later manuscripts which agree with your Bible

What would it take for the Bible to have been changed?

Impossible to change all the manuscripts. Geographic diversity, all the versions, quotations, manuscripts not even yet discovered

Are you seeing how silly this argument is?

Who decided what books to put the Bible in the first place?

Canons – early church documents that point to what books were accepted and which books were not

This is HUGE – we have the witness from the early church showing which books they considered trustworthy; which books to die for if Roman soldiers showed up

Early Christians memorized entire books of the New Testament (Egypt and other places it was a requirement to be in the ministry)

Muratorian Canon – AD 170

Perhaps oldest known list of most of books of NT

List of “Accepted” books and “Rejected” books

All 4, Gospels, Acts, Jude, 1 John, another epistle of John, Revelation, and epistles of Paul accepted

Accepted books were written by apostles or people who knew apostles

Shows us that Early Christians already had a belief about what WAS and what WAS NOT scripture. 

Probably written several hundred years after the apostles??

So the church can figure out how to control people, right???

Wrong!

This is still when Christians were being killed for their faith

They were trusting on Jesus and depending on His Word just to make it.

Muratorian fragment preserved in Milan, Bibliotheca Ambrosiana, Cod. J 101 sup.

EARLY CHRISTIANITY DID NOT ACCEPT OTHER BOOKS

Only one NT book we don’t know who author is

Gospels of Peter and James, 3rd corinthians, epistle to laodocians, etc

OLD TESTAMENT

We have manuscripts in Hebrew and Aramaic, and also in Greek of the Old Testament.

The Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic textual tradition preserved by Jewish scribes called the Masoretes. 

We also have the Septuagint, which is the Greek Old Testament.

Jews carefully copied and standardized the Hebrew Scriptures.

Until recently, The oldest known complete copies of the Hebrew Bible go back to 900-1000 AD.

Although Jews were very careful in the copies, one might still try to raise doubt. 

UNTIL what is arguably the greatest find in modern archaeology:

The Dead Sea Scrolls Support the Reliability of the Old Testament

• Discovered beginning in 1947 in caves near the Dead Sea at Qumran.
• 3 Bedouin shepherds discovered ancient scrolls hidden in the caves.
• 15,000 texts, 40% of which are copies of Biblical texts
• There is a scholarly consensus on the age of the Dead sea scrolls
• Paleographical dating, Radiocarbon dating, and archaeological evidence all support a date of these writings that go as far back as the 3rd century BC.
• Portions of every Old Testament book except Esther were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.
• What does this all mean? The scriptures found in your Bible are OLD and some of the go back to BEFORE the time of Jesus and the apostles. Before Christianity.
• “Many of the scrolls are practically identical with the Masoretic text, which thus takes this recension back in history to pre-Christian times” – Encyclopedia Brittanica
• The Hebrew text is ANCIENT.
• Among the discoveries was the Great Isaiah Scroll.
• The source dates it to approximately 125 BC.
• It contains essentially the complete book of Isaiah.

When the Great Isaiah Scroll was compared with the later Masoretic Text:

• The two were found to be remarkably similar.
• Word for Word identical in 95% of the text
• 5% difference were mostly slips of the pen and spelling

Isaiah is important because it foretells the birth of the Messiah (Isaiah 7) the suffering of the Messiah (Isaiah 53) and the reign of the messiah (Isaiah 9) BEFORE Jesus was born!

• The Dead Sea Scrolls pushed surviving Hebrew biblical manuscripts back more than 1000 years.

• They provide ancient witnesses to the Hebrew Scriptures and support the stability of the textual tradition.
• Authenticate the OT in YOUR Bible!

Your Bible didnt’ just show up yesterday! It is ANCIENT. It is RELIABLE. Your faith is VALID.

We’re talking about valid faith, believing in God’s Word is VALID FAITH.

God’s Word is reliable for many more reasons!

Unique Moral teachings

Confirming scientific concepts before science itself did

History and archaeology confirms it

Fulfilled prophecy

If we had more time we could dive in to all those things

We know God’s Word is Reliable because of how it changes lives!

Grew up without a dad

Grandma worked 16 hour doubles at the nursing home to feed us

Struggled with unusual anxieties, obsessive worries

Fear and insecurity and isolation

BUT

I read about God in His Word

That began a conversation

Earnestly prayed that God would be real in my life

Don’t wanna just read about You

He brought me into contact with people of faith

Started going to church

That led me to an altar of repentance

A place where i could connect with God

I didn’t have a fancy prayer

I just remember praying

God, would you be my Father?

That night I had a encounter with God

I had an encounter with my Father

It started with faith, 

you see friends

I read about Him in His Word.

God gave me His Word

He wanted me to know Him.

He is my Father and wanted a relationship with Me.

And that has changed everything. 

And then later when the trials came

The dark nights

When I lost my way

And let anxiety creep

And the emotions cloud my thinking and mindset

And I didn’t know what to do

When I returned to the Word of God

And REALLY believed it

And REALLY applied to my life

That’s when Victory came!!

I am not just sermonizing

God’s Word has GIVEN ME MY LIFE

He has rescued me!!

But I had to stand on the Word

That’s great Jonathan, but does this have to do with me? What does His Word accomplish in my life?

The question what can’t God’s Word do in your life?

Do you need wisdom? It has wisdom

Do you need hope? 

Hope for your family

Hope for your finances

Hope for your relationships

Comfort in the dark times

A voice than can push back fear and the lies 

That seek to destroy you and those you love

God’s Word has all these things for you if you will have faith

It’s not just another self-help book

Self-help books can claim to do all these things

But the Word of God connects you to the ONE who can Fill that God-shaped hole in your soul.

It connects you to biggest thing that’s ever going to happen to you

And that is an encounter with Jesus Christ

Like the encounter an 18 year old boy from Waco Texas had one Wednesday night

And a life was saved

And a destiny was forever changed

It starts with Valid faith

We can have faith in God’s Word

Would you stand with me?

3 things I want you to do with this message

Call To Action – How to rely on God’s Word 

God’s Word is not just information—it is meant to transform us.

1. ABSORB

Read God’s Word. Take it in. Feed on it.

Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

God’s Word is spiritual food. Don’t just read it—absorb it. Hide it in your heart.

Make a commitment to spend time in God’s Word every day.

2. AGREE

Agreement means saying:

“God, even when I don’t understand it, I choose to believe what Your Word says.”

We agree with God—not with our feelings, our culture, or our limited understanding.

Sometimes we want to argue with God. We want to explain why we think our way is better.

But agreement brings us to a place of surrender:

“Not my will, but Yours be done.”

Agreement is powerful because it is part of repentance. It prepares our hearts to change.

Before we can live God’s way, we must first decide that God’s way is right.

We meet with God every day in prayer and confess that we want His Kingdom to Come and His  will to be done in our lives.

Which leads us to the last step

3. ALIGN

Alignment means bringing our lives into line with God’s Word.

We don’t just hear the truth—we live it. Even when we don’t understand.

You see, alignment becomes easier when we have already crossed the bridge of agreement.

When the Bible says something like love your enemies, pray for those who despitefully use you

And that makes no sense us, but you trust in God and His Word.

And we submit that area of our lives to His Will, we can begin to be more like Him.

Absorbing God’s Word brings us direction.

Agreement to God’s Word prepares the heart.
Alignment to God’s Word changes the life.

We read God’s Word.

We agree with God’s Word.

We live out God’s Word.

ABSORB. AGREE. ALIGN.

Let God’s Word transform you.

You can trust God’s Word. It has not changed—what IS changing are people’s lives.

He doesn’t change, but He is changing us to conform to the image of His Son.

Keep reading. Keep trusting. Keep growing.

And as God’s Word transforms you, you will become more and more like Jesus.