(1 John 2:1-4) There is no such thing as a sinless believer! Salvation never rests on the believer's merit but on the Savior's merit alone. Although we cannot be sinless until we see Him, is it possible to sin less? (0985250407) 

Visit https://enjoyingthejourney.org/you-can-know/ to download the FREE “23 Birthmarks of the Believer” handout. 

(Revelation 5:9-14) God's love is without prejudice. Jesus has impartial intentions to save everyone for an eternal relationship with Him. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved! (0984250405) 

(1 John 1:8-10) Is your life evidence of God's truth? Agreeing with the truth and behaving according to it are inseparable characteristics of God's children. Christians are children of the truth! (0983250404) 

Visit https://enjoyingthejourney.org/you-can-know/ to download the FREE “23 Birthmarks of the Believer” handout. 

(1 John 1:5-7) When God created the world, the first thing He created was light. Immediately after, He divided the light from the darkness. One mark of God's children is that they live in the light and despise the darkness! (0982250403) 

Visit https://enjoyingthejourney.org/you-can-know/ to download the FREE “23 Birthmarks of the Believer” handout. 

(1 John 1:1-4) Belief in Jesus precedes the new birth into His family. Growth as a child of God depends on the same concept of believing. How can your belief be developed? (0981250402) 

Visit https://enjoyingthejourney.org/you-can-know/ to download the FREE “23 Birthmarks of the Believer” handout. 

(1 John 3:1, 9; 4:7; 5:1) There is no greater relationship than being a child of God! A corollary truth is that there is no greater knowledge than knowing you are a child of God. Listen to today's episode to discover how you can know with certainty! (0980250401) 

Visit https://enjoyingthejourney.org/you-can-know/ to download the FREE “23 Birthmarks of the Believer” handout. 

(1 John 2:3; 5:20) Throughout the little book of 1 John, different forms of the word "know" are used thirty-eight times. In this age of increasing uncertainty and mass confusion, 1 John provides divine insight into the clarifying and purifying knowledge of knowing God. (0979250331) 

Visit https://enjoyingthejourney.org/you-can-know/ to download the FREE “23 Birthmarks of the Believer” handout. 

(Revelation 5:8) We will not see the answer to some prayers until we kneel at Jesus Christ's nail-pierced feet. Occasionally, God gives us glimmers of those answers here, but one glorious day, we will see them in whole. Imagine what we have to look forward to! (0978250329) 

(1 Corinthians 2:9-13) The same God who gave us the Scriptures works in us to help us understand them. He also gives us a work to do! The Word of God is the foundation of our faith. (0977250328) ----more----

Did you know that by the time of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Old Testament books had been generally accepted as inspired writings? The New Testament books were listed in their current form by AD 397. Most of them were accepted immediately after the time of the Apostles, but by AD 397, all of them had, if you will, passed the test.

In other words, they bore the mark of Divine authority. They were accepted by local New Testament churches as having evidence of being the very word of a living God. Throughout the centuries, the word of God has been passed on to us. It is beautiful to see how God has overseen the preservation of His word for every generation. I thank God for that because the word of God is the foundation of our faith.

Now, I want to come full circle in our discussion about what the Bible says regarding the word of God, bringing it to where we live, to our hearts, and to its application in our lives. You see, my friend, you could accept the fact that the Bible is God's revelation of Himself.

You can say you believe that God breathed it, that it was inspired by God. You can even agree that God has promised to preserve His word for every generation, but if you don't allow that book to affect your life, you've fallen short. You've missed the whole point. God gave His word so that it would change our lives. 

Did you know that there is a work God does through the word and a work we are to do in the word? That's what I want to focus on today as we conclude our study of what the Bible says. I am praying that this series will be the impetus, the motivation, the prodding from God, if you will, for you to love the Scriptures more, to engage with the word of God more deeply, and to learn all that God has to say to you.

Let's begin with how God uses His word in our lives. In 1 Corinthians chapter two, the Bible states, beginning in verse nine, “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God, which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” 

Hear me with your heart, please. You can't be spiritual without being scriptural. Do you see how the Holy Spirit is connected to the word of the living God? May I say to you that God's work through His word is a work of illumination. That is the work of the Holy Spirit, helping us understand the word of God.

One of the greatest prayers in the Bible is found in Psalm 119:18. The Psalmist prays, “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.” What is he praying for? Light, illumination. I want to tell you that the God who inspired the word now works in illumination. The same Holy Spirit who gave the word now opens your understanding to it.

You have the Author living with you all the time. The best way to understand a book is to talk to the person who wrote it. The best way to understand God's book is to talk to God, because I promise you, He'll respond; He'll teach; He'll speak. Jesus said in John 14, 15, and 16 that the Holy Spirit would come to teach us all things and to bring all things to our remembrance. This is the work of the Holy Spirit of God in our lives, helping us understand and apply the truth. That is His work through the word.

If that's His part, what's our part? Our work in the word is the work of interpretation. In other words, we have to be good students. Here's the verse: 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 15 says, “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” That is our job: to rightly divide, to rightly interpret. If God's work relates to understanding the truth, then our work relates to investigating it.

In other words, we should approach the word of God by studying it for its literal interpretation to find out exactly what God has to say to us, with the goal of applying that to our lives. Now we are in 2 Timothy, so let's look across the page to 2 Timothy chapter 3. Let's complete the circuit. We began with this: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God." You remember that in verse 16, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. But here’s the goal: “that the man of God may be perfect or mature, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” 

Someone else said, "We can say God speaks in His word, the Bible."

This is true. We can provide book, chapter, and verse. We can quote scripture and state, "This is what the Bible says," because we are standing on a firm foundation. When you stand on the word of God, it becomes the foundation of our faith.

Simply repeating what others have said about the Bible is not enough; we must understand the biblical reasons behind what we believe. We hope you will visit us at etj.bible to access our library of Bible teaching resources, including book-by-book studies of scripture. You'll also find studies to watch, listen to, or read. We are so grateful for those who pray for us, share the biblical content, and invest in helping us advance this ministry worldwide.Again, thank you for listening, and we hope you'll join us next time on "Enjoying the Journey."

(Psalm 119:89) A person's character is only as good as their word. God's good name is connected to the innerancy of His Word. In this study we learn the principle of divine preservation and deepen our conviction in the trustworthiness of the Bible. (0976250327) ----more----

Psalm 119 is the Psalm of the Scriptures. In fact, of the 176 verses in Psalm 119, all but two make a definite reference to the word of God in some way. It is a powerful Psalm, and right in the middle of it, we read these words: Psalm 119:89 says, "Forever, oh Lord, thy word is settled in heaven." What does it mean? It means the word of God never changes. So the question is, "Can I trust the Bible?" We've been talking about the fact that God gave His word, He revealed Himself in Scripture, and he inspired the very words of Scripture to be written down by men. He used men to convey his truth to men, but he did it in such a way that we hold in our hands the perfect word of the living God. Can you trust it? There are so many proofs that the word of God can be trusted. 

For example, there's historical proof. Think of all the fulfilled prophecy in scripture. Did you know that about 30% of your Bible is prophecy? Think of that. There's no real prophecy in any of the other what are referred to as holy books outside the Bible. All of these religions have their holy books, but read them carefully, and you'll find that one of the vastween them and scripture is that the word of the living God is full of very exact differences bet prophecies. Andcies have already been fulfilled exactly as scores of those specific prophe God said.

It's an accurate book. The Bible lines up perfectly with proven historical records. As a matter of fact, even archeology has begun to prove the Bible's claims. For years, historians said there was no such group as the Hittites, for example, no such group as the Hittites that was given in scripture.

That was a myth. And yet archeology has now proven the Bible's claims of a group known as the Hittite. It's proven the historical existence of David and a united kingdom (Israel). 100% of the time, after all the evidence was in the Bible, it was vindicated. Now, I'm not saying that to say that we vindicate the Bible with external things.

Remember that we accept the word of God by faith. We come to God by faith that he can be trusted. I'm simply saying that the word of God is accurate in every way. Scientifically, for example, the Bible revealed truth beyond its years. Leviticus 17:11 talks about the life of the flesh being in the blood. We've only really discovered that in the last few hundred years - this use of blood. Job 26:7 tells us that the earth is suspended in space. Isaiah 40:22 that tells us the Earth is round. Luke 17 tells us that the earth revolves on its axis. Genesis 22:17 tells us that the stars are more than can be counted.

Genesis 1 tells us that plants and animals reproduce after their own kind or species. Hebrews 1:2 tells us that there are other worlds or planets. Job 28 25 tells us the air has weight. Psalm 8:8 tells us the ocean has currents. I'm saying to you that the God of all truth can be trusted. 

And so we've come today to another thing that must be discussed when you're studying what the Bible says about the word of God. We've talked about revelation, we've talked about inspiration. Let's talk today about preservation. What does preservation mean? It literally means that God Almighty, who was powerful enough to give his word, is powerful enough to preserve his word to every generation.

Now I wanna give you a number of scriptures that may help with this in your own mind. 

Scriptural Evidence of Preservation

Listen to the words of Psalm 12:6-7. "The words of the Lord are pure words as silver tried in a furnace of earth purified seven times." Now listen to this. "Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever."

I hear people say I believe God may have given his word perfectly the first time, but after all of these years. Certainly it's been tainted by man, wait a minute. The same God who gave his word is powerful enough to preserve His word to every generation. That includes our generation. How about Psalm 33:11, "The council of the Lord standeth forever. The thoughts of his heart to all generations." We're in the all generations. How about Psalm 100:5? And by the way, for every verse I'm showing you today there are a dozen more just like it. I'm just giving you a little sample here. Psalm 100:5 says, "For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endureth to all generations."

I want to remind you that the character of the word is tied to the character of the God of the Word. So if you want to agree that the Lord is good, if you want to agree that His mercy is everlasting, then you must agree that His truth endured to all generations. Psalm 105:8 says this, "He has remembered his covenant forever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations."  In other words, it's hyperbole. There's no end to God's truth. There's no end to his word to us. 

I go back to Psalm 119, this great psalm of the scriptures. I told you it's full of the word of God. Listen to Psalm 119:152, "Concerning thy testimonies, I have known of old that thou has founded them," and here's the word that just keeps popping up over and over again, "forever." We believe that our God is the eternal God, and because of that, we believe that His word is the eternal word. Nothing and no one will ever change that.

I remember reading the story years ago of a man who hated the word of God, and he made it his mission to stamp out as many copies of the scripture in his lifetime in his country as he possibly could. And so he spent great sums of money gathering copies of the word of God and burning them and destroying them. When he died, one of the Bible societies purchased his home and made it a center for Bible distribution in that part of the world. Don't tell me that God doesn't have a sense of humor. Men are gonna pass away. The ideas of men are going to pass away. The word the Lord stands forever. How about Isaiah 40:8, "The grass withereth. The flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand." You know the word forever. He is a forever God. Let's let the Lord Jesus speak to this. Go to the New Testament, Matthew 24:35. Listen to the very words of the Lord Jesus Christ. "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." If you come to the end of the New Testament and let Peter, one of the first disciples testify. He says in 1 Peter 1:23, "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever." All through scripture, you see the word of God being preserved.

For example, in Deuteronomy, the scroll of Moses was placed inside the Ark of the Covenant under the cherub's wings. What a beautiful picture In Joshua 24:26 Joshua's written additions to what God gave him to write down were placed in a safeguarded place. First Samuel 10:25, the words of Samuel were placed in the Holy of Holies. The Lord made sure that Moses had a handwritten copy of the scriptures given a second time. You remember that the priest were given the responsibility in Deuteronomy 17:18 to make copies of the scriptures, and later scribes were appointed for that job. That's what Ezra was with a scribe. Why would God take such care of preserving his word? Because he wanted us to have it Preservation. Is God extending his truth perfectly to every generation? We believe that those scribes took care of the Old Testament Scriptures. The apostles took care of the New Testament scriptures, but God took care of it all. And here's the amazing thing, did you know the Bible speaks more of preservation than it does inspiration? It's not a lesser doctrine. So if you're gonna believe that God gave his word, you have to also believe that God has preserved his word to every generation. Would you stop today and just thank God that you have the preserved word of the living God, perfectly given to us in our generation, just as God gave it and rejoice today that you're serving the God of eternal truth?

Repeating what other people have said about the Bible is not enough. We must know the biblical reason behind what we believe. We hope you will visit us at etj.bible to access our Library of Bible teaching resources, including book-by-book studies of Scripture. You'll also find studies to watch, listen to, or read. We are so grateful for those who pray for us, who share the biblical content, and for those who invest to help us advance this ministry worldwide. Again, thank you for listening and we hope you'll join us next time on Enjoying the Journey.