7 Reasons Why You Can Trust The Bible // Lord Send Revival Week 3

Come on 9.30, I said, "Who's excited to be in church today?" (audience cheering) It's such a great day to be in church. I'm so glad that you're here. I want to say welcome to all of our guests with us, every person in the room, every person online. And I want to give a special shout out to the men and women watching from a correctional facility. Specifically, I want to give a shout out to my friend, Stephen, who wrote me a letter this week behind bars. He's given his life to Jesus. He watches our service every week. (audience cheering) And, he loved Coward Church so much. He told his friends about it, who live in Burlington, and his friends Peter and Brittany are here today in our service as first time guests with us. Come on, let's welcome all those behind bars in a correctional facility today. You're not a project to us. You are family. And we're in week three of our series, Lord Send Revival. Today, I'm going to teach you about the Bible, the power of the word of God. And we'll get there in just a minute. But first and foremost, I just want to say thank you. Thank you so much for being a church when I call a play that you jump in on that. We just had such a powerful, incredible week of prayer and fasting, six AM prayer, Tuesday and Friday.

If you were not there, let me just tell you, you were missing out. And so don't miss in January when we do 21 days of prayer and fasting. And it wasn't Wednesday night, just incredible in the room with Greg Hubbard and the worship and the prayer and the altar time. And so I'm so, so excited to cast some vision and tell you that how many are thankful for what the Lord is doing at Calvary Church every single week? Come on, every single week, God is moving. May we never, never, never forget what the Lord is doing here and never take for granted what the Lord is doing here at Calvary Church. Listen to me, it's an honor and a privilege for me every single week to get up here and to preach for services. May we never, never see that as a burden. May we always see that as God is moving amongst us. But how many know when you do services back to back to back like that? You have to be structured. You have to be ordered. Let me say it this way. You gotta start on time and you gotta end on time. 'Cause if you don't, the parking lot's gonna get crowded. How many know, first time guests are not gonna wanna come when the parking lot's already filled. And the kids' classrooms won't get cleared out, right? And so I am so excited to tell you

that we're gonna keep our Sunday services the way that they are because we're seeing lost people get saved and that's the primary reason why we have lost our weekend services for people to know God, lost people to be saved. But I'm so happy to tell you starting the first Wednesday of the month, we're doing first Wednesday, which is just what we did this past Wednesday night, a night of worship, prayer, communion, and the word and altar time, just lingering. Come on, who enjoyed this past Wednesday night? So you can mark that on your calendars. The next one is October 7th, and then November 2nd and December 2nd. And some are you saying, but what about freedom past your day and how does that tie into freedom? 'Cause we're kicking off 20 plus freedom groups this Wednesday night plus 50 plus small groups are launching. How are you gonna do freedom over the next 13 weeks? That's a great question. You come out this Wednesday night, we'll start week one of freedom, and then we're building the 13 weeks of freedom curriculum with the first Wednesday nights in mind. And so we'll do freedom week one this Wednesday, we'll do freedom week two on the 30th, and then the next Wednesday is first Wednesday, the pastor coming, Pastor Kirk Kinney, our new superintendent of the state of New Jersey, I've already given him the topic,

he's preaching week three of the freedom curriculum, he's just preaching in a message. So for 13 weeks, you're still gonna get all of the content, we're just gonna bake it in with services as well, that sound good to everybody. So come on, everyone's taking a next step this fall into freedom, who the son is set free is what? Free indeed, all right, today I'm gonna teach you about the Bible, today I'm gonna teach you about the Bible. We taught on prayer for the last two weeks, I'm gonna teach you about the Bible today, because the word Bible simply means book, but it's not just a book, come on someone, it's a holy book, it's the holy Bible, it's set apart, that's what that word holy means, it's special. Holy would be like your fine China, it has a special place in our hearts, and so we treat it as holy as well. And I'm asking you today, in this message today, to make room in your heart, to just give it a set apart place inside of all of us. Our verse for today, I want you all to read it out loud, notice I didn't say a soft, I want you all to read it out loud. Okay, Matthew chapter 24, they're gonna throw it up on the screen, here we go, here's what it says, read it one, two, three, ready, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. So Jesus said these words, so even though man can dissect it, even though man can deconstruct it, even though man can try to destroy it or criticize it

or pull it down or hate on it, my words will live forever, my words will never pass away, the word of God is living and active and it will never fade away. And I'm gonna jump right in today to this message, so if you're taking notes, go ahead and pull them out, and I'm gonna give you seven convincing proofs that the Bible can be trusted. Seven convincing proofs that the Bible can be relied upon, it can be trusted, and here's number one, Grab your notes, we're a note-taking church. Number one is this, that the Holy Bible is historically accurate. The Holy Bible is historically accurate. So a lot of people know that the Bible has good principles in it, but they don't believe that those things actually happened. I've heard some pastors even say, look, the principles are right, but some of the stories are made up. And the reason why they say that is they actually have an issue with their own faith, because what they're saying is that there's some things in the Bible that are not humanly possible, like it's not humanly possible for a man to live in the belly of a whale for three days. That's not humanly possible. And my response to them will be, I agree with you, it's not humanly possible. Neither is a virgin birth, and neither is a resurrection. There's a lot of things that are not humanly possible

that I just have to put my faith in. Can I hear a good amen, someone? I don't know if you've all heard the story about the little girl who wrote a research paper for her teacher, and she turned the paper and it was on Jonah and the whale. Jonah and the whale. And the teacher was not a Christian. In fact, the teacher was a staunch atheist. And the teacher was kind of mad as she wrote on this topic. And so the teacher said to the little girl, why did you write this? She said, because I believe it's true. And the teacher goes, well, how do you know it's true? And she goes, well, I'll tell you this. When I get to heaven, I'll ask Jonah myself how it happened. And the teacher said, but what if Jonah didn't go to heaven? What if he went to hell? And then the little girl said, well, then you can ask him. Come on, don't use that. That's a bad pastor joke right there, don't use that, all right? All right, that's kind of funny in church. But listen to me, the word of God is not only true. Come on, someone, it is right. It's right. It's not only true, it's right. And so the question is, how can you prove if something is actually historically accurate? I'm so glad that you asked that question today. Historians have standards they use to determine

whether an ancient document is historically reliable. These aren't Christian standards. These are standards that historians use today. The first standard is this, number one, eyewitness accounts. So where are there people who were actually living there? And much of the Bible is written by people who were eyewitnesses to what actually happened. The gospel give us multiple accounts of the life of Jesus. And they weren't sitting together writing, like Luke wasn't like, hey Mark, what are you putting in chapter 12? Sounds good, I'll drop that as well. Now they wrote their own individual accounts, and together they gave us this consistent picture of the life of Jesus and the death of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus. Number two, it was recorded and copied with extreme care. It was recorded and copied with extreme care. So the Jewish scribes were meticulous when it came to copying scripture. They had these incredibly strict standards because they believed they were handling the word of God. And there's this idea that is drifted into culture today that the Bible is like this game of telephone, that every time it got translated, it got a little weaker and it got a little further from the original manuscripts. But that's actually not how Bible translation works at all. Modern translations go back to the ancient Hebrew and the ancient Greek manuscripts. And one of the greatest examples, this is your homework,

if you've never heard of this, go Google the Dead Sea Scrolls today, after the Eagles game and watch it, okay? When ancient biblical manuscripts were discovered, scholars were able to compare them with those manuscripts from the Dead Sea Scrolls that had passed down for generations. And here's what it demonstrated, remarkable consistency in the transmission of the text. Number three, archeological confirmation. Archeological confirmation. The Bible talks about real cities, real nations, real kings, real people groups. And archeology has repeatedly confirmed the historical setting of scripture. So for years, critics even pointed to the Hittites because the Bible talks about them, but outside evidence was limited concerning this people grew. Then archeologists uncovered the remains and records of the Hittite civilization. The Bible had been talking about them all along. And church, let me just say this today, we don't believe in the Bible because of archeology, but archeology keeps reminding us that our faith is not built on a fiction story or a fairy tale. Come on, the Bible is not only good and true, the Bible is trustworthy. Here's the second one, all right? The second one is this, is that the Holy Bible is scientifically accurate.

The Holy Bible is scientifically accurate. Now people say in culture today, you just gotta trust the science. How many times did we hear that phrase in 2020? You just gotta trust the science. Trust the science. How many of you notice that science changes? How many of you notice that science evolves? That there's been some thoughts concerning science in some seasons that people don't believe later? Here, I'll illustrate it this way. in college or in high school, if you went back to the material taught in that class today, you would say it is archaic. Why? Because science changes. But the truth of the word of God stays the same, everybody. Psalm 148, 5 through 6, says, "God issued a command and everything came into being." He set them in a place forever and ever and his decree will never be revoked. God knows all the truth because God created everything. So for a book written over 1600 years ago, you would think there'd at least be one scientific thing in there that eventually would have to be corrected, but I'm so excited to tell you that there's not. In fact, if you go to Louvre in Paris, in their vault, they have miles of science books that are now obsolete. One of them written in 1861 by the French Academy of Science was called 51 incontrovertible science facts that proved the Bible is wrong. And since 1861, all 51 of them have been controverted. Come on, someone. They were wrong and the Bible was right. But it's not only what the Bible says about science, it's also what it didn't say. Think about the beliefs of science of the day. You would think some of them would have crept into scripture, like for centuries, people believed that the earth was flat. But 2600 years ago, Isaiah chapter 40 verse 22 says, "God sits enthroned above the circle of the earth. All they had to do was read the Bible." Here's another one. Ancient civilizations believed the earth had to be held up. And so the Greeks had the belief system. The atlas held the earth up. The Hindus had the belief that elephants and turtles held the world up. The Egyptians believed the earth was held up by pillars. But Job, the oldest book in the Bible, says

in Job's 26, 7, he spreads out the northern skies over empty space. He suspends the earth over everything. How did Job know? Maybe Job didn't write the Bible. Maybe God did. Are you all listening to everybody? Here's another one. For centuries, people believed you could count the stars. Hippocrates counted 1,022 stars in the whole universe. Ptolemy came along and said, "No, no, no. There's not 1,022. You missed four stars. There's 1,026." Today we know that that is laughable. Estimates, according to chat GPT this week, as I looked it up, said, "There are 10, 6,000,000 or 1 with 21 zeros behind it of the stars in the sky." But even Jeremiah 33, 22 already says, "The stars in the sky cannot be counted." Our God is the God who placed the stars in the sky and he knows them by name. I'll give you another one. For centuries, they practiced this principle called bloodletting. And if you don't know what bloodletting is, it was this practice where they believed that diseases and sickness flowed inside of the blood. And so for a way for a person to get rid of that sickness or disease, they would cut them open and let the blood out, thinking if they got rid of the blood, they'd get rid of the disease as well. And it was very, very dangerous. Many people actually died that way. That's how George Washington actually died, one of our founding fathers. They repeatedly bled him out while he was sick. But thousands of years earlier, Leviticus 1711 says the life of the body is in the blood. Today we don't bleed sick people out if they have a surgery or if they need something in their sickness. We give them blood because there's life in the blood. And let me just pause right there and let me step on some of your toes right here and just say, that's why we're a pro-life church as an assemblies have got church because we believe that life is precious and life should be protected. You're saying, Pastor Dan, you're getting a little political in the platform. No, for me, that conviction is biblical, Psalm 139. You created me in my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's room. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. So from womb to tomb, our call and responsibility is to protect all people and see no one without Jesus. The word of God says that. And in eight days of conception, you can literally see blood forming. And it's so interesting that Leviticus talks about on the eighth day that they would circumcise a baby. Isn't it just maybe just maybe that life is found in the blood? Psalm 12 verse 6 says, the words of the Lord are, come on, shout it out. The words of the Lord are what they are. They're like flawless. They're like silver purified in

a crucible, like gold refined seven times. Church science may change. Our understanding may change. Our worldview may shift. But the word of God stands forever. The grass withers and the flowers fade. But the word of God is living in active. And the word of God stands forever. I'll give you number three. I've got seven. Here we go. Number three is this. The Holy Bible is prophetically active. this is a bit risky because you're not just writing a book and asking people to believe it, you're now going to make predictions. And it only takes one of these predictions to actually be not true to throw the whole thing off. Are you ready for this? There are more than a thousand predictions and prophecies in Scripture. 300 of these prophecies are about Christ alone. And it's not just general stuff like he'd be a man or he'd be nice or kind. It's specific detailed prophecies that would say like he would ride on a donkey into Jerusalem. He was born in Bethlehem. He would grow up in Nazareth. He would escape Egypt. I mean specific prophecies. And by the way, these prophecies were not written in the generation right before Jesus. The last prophecy in the Bible about Jesus was 400 years before Jesus actually lived. That would be like somebody on the Mayflower predicting what we're doing today in our service on September 20th year at Calvary Church. Like David in the Psalms prophesies, you can read it, the prophecy of crucifixion he speaks about before crucifixion was even a form of punishment in that culture that he was living in. And check this out. Every single prophecy in the Bible concerning Jesus came absolutely true. There are some prophecies that have yet to be fulfilled yet in Scripture. They're in the book of Revelation. And by the way, I would say you don't want to be on the wrong side of those prophecies since every single prophecy to this part has been fulfilled, okay? She's doing a pretty good job of fulfilling all the prophecies so far. Let me blow your mind a little bit today of the chances of these prophecies actually being fulfilled. So there's a man by the name of Dr. Peter Stoner who studies probability. And he's got a hundred people who studied probability on his team. And they did research for years and years concerning the probability of these prophecies actually coming true. And they concluded for one person fulfilling just eight of them. Think about that. Just eight of these prophecies, it was the likelihood of one to 10 to the 17th power. Do you see all those zeros behind it? One to 10 to the 17th power. Now we just see a big number like that and it's hard for us to equate in our mind what that actually means. So I'm going to tell you what one to 10 to the 17th power means today, okay? One to 10 to the 17th power would be if I took that amount of silver

dollars, so one with all of those zeros behind it, if I took that amounts, I would have to place them across the whole state of Texas two feet deep to get one to 10 to the 17th power of silver dollars. And then it'd be like, hey, I placed one red silver dollar in that whole bunch somewhere in Texas. Let's hop on a helicopter and you got to find it. And I blindfold the person and I dropped them off in Texas and they got to dig two feet deep to find the one red coin. You all know how big Texas is? I've been to Texas before. From Tix Arcana to El Paso, that is a 14-hour drive. Come on, there is no way you're ever finding that red silver dollar. You all listen to me? That's the point. The point of one of these eight prophecies being fulfilled is one in 10 to the 17th power. That one person would fulfill 16 of these prophecies is one in 10 to the 45th power. One person fulfilling 48 of these prophecies is one in 10 to the 157th power. There's no explanation to this other than man didn't write the Bible. God did. Oh, I'm going to say it again. You're not responding enough in the 930. Man didn't write the Bible. God did one more time. Man didn't write the Bible. God departed my passion, everybody. But the Bible is real. The Bible is true. Actually, don't part in my passion. I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's the power of God unto salvation, first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. Somebody give them a shout of praise for the Word of God, which is living and active. And the Word of God, which is true. And the Word of God, which we place our belief in hope in. Matthew 26, 56. Jesus said this all happened to fulfill the words of the prophets as recorded in the Scriptures. All right, number four. Here's number four. I've got four more to show you. Number four is that the Holy Bible is thematically unified. The Holy Bible is thematically unified. The Holy Bible was written over a period of 1600 years over a dozen different countries on three continents by 40 people of all walks of life in three different languages. And how did they all get the exact same story? I mean, you'd expect the Quran written by one person, Muhammad, would have a unified story. You'd expect the analytics of confusion written by one person to have a unified story. You'd expect the writings of Buddha, one person, writing that to have a unified story. But this many people, over 40 people, over this amount of time, without contradiction, and it's all about Jesus. They all point to one name, and his name is Jesus. Hope has a name today. His name is Jesus. Joy has a name today. His name is Jesus. The cure to depression and anxiety and pain and unforgiveness is found in Jesus and Jesus alone. Salvation is found in northern name, but the name of Jesus. Jesus who says, "I am the way, and I am the truth, and I am the life." And no man comes to the Father but by me. It's thematically unified. Number five, the Holy Bible is also trusted by Jesus. And I would just pause right there, and someone might consider this actually the weakest argument that I'm presenting to you today.

But if you're the one who's given your life to Jesus, and Jesus trusted it, and you've called him Lord, then whatever he says is right. Let me just remind you of this today. If Jesus is not Lord of all in your life, then he's not Lord at all. That's what it means to be a follower of Jesus. This is Matthew chapter five verse 18. Jesus said, "Truly, truly, I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear." Not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen. Will by any means disappear from the Scriptures, the law. He's talking about the Old Testament. That time until everything is accomplished. And that's why I'm challenging those today that are deconstructing the Bible that are saying, "Did the Bible really say this is wrong and that is wrong and picking it apart and reinventing it and choosing it to fit the kind of life you want to live?" That's a really dangerous thing to do. In fact, to say it this way, if you believe what you like in the Bible, but you don't believe what you don't like, you're no longer trusting the Bible or Jesus you're just trusting in yourself. Let's just call it what it is. You've created a religion around you, and you're God, and that's a very dangerous thing. Number six, and that is this, the Holy Bible has survived all attacks, which begs the question, why was it being attacked in the first place? Think about that. Why is the Bible so aggressively being attacked even to this day? The Bible is the most despised, derided, denied, disputed, dissected, debated, outlawed, and destroyed book ever. Yet it still endures. Yet it still remains. It's still here today, thousands of years later, and very, very smart people. I mean, there are people in our culture today that are revered as masterminds, have doubted the Bible. Anyone ever heard of a man named Voltaire? Voltaire is a French philosopher. He lived in the 18th century, really, really smart guy, but he said this quote, this is what Voltaire said concerning the Bible. Within 100 years, the Bible will be forgotten, and the only thing that's been forgotten is that quote. In fact, you want to hear something funny? I just love this. God is a great God. He's got a good sense of humor. You all don't know God if you don't know his sense of humor, okay? He's a phony God. When we get to heaven, we're going to be laughing with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. This is such a great story. When Voltaire died, his house was bought, and today his house was bought and owned by the French Bible Society. I just think that's hilarious. The Bible Society owns the house of the man that prophesied that the Bible would be forgotten in 100 years, and the Bible is still being taught, and the Bible is still being passed out from that French Bible society. Why is that? Luke 21, 33, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. So my question for you today is this. Will I be one of those that attack, challenge, change God's Word? Or am I just going to be one of those that live according to the Word of God? And if there's some changing that needs to take place, that's why we just had a week of prayer and fasting. That's why we humbled ourselves before Lord and say, "God, search me, O God." Lord, if there's changing that needs to take place, I'm not changing the Word of God to fit me, I'm changing me to fit in. And I'm asking you to be these kinds of people. And trust me, you're going to love what the Bible will deliver in your life. Will I deconstruct the Bible, or will I defend it? Will I follow the world, or am I going to follow the Word? Somebody saying, "Pastor Dan, it's getting a little scary out there in America right now."

What happens one day if they make it illegal for us to gather? It's a church. What happens one day if you can't preach the Bible to us on a Sunday morning? What happens if Bibles become illegal, like in other places in the world, where you can't have Bibles? What happens? What happens? What will you do as a pastor of Calvary Church if they tell you that you can't preach the gospel on Sunday morning? I will tell you what I will do. They will have to lock me up, okay? They will have to lock me up because as long as I'm still your pastor, I'm going to keep preaching the Word of God, the Word of God. And that's my promise to you as your pastor every Sunday. I'm not going to give you the words of Dan McCarthy. Those words mean absolutely nothing. I am not that smart. I don't have much good to say on my own. Whether you like it or not, we're gonna be a church that lives under the Word of God. Someone say amen right there. And here's the last one. You can actually test this on yourself. See, I say it all the time and maybe to some of you, it's actually become a little cliche over these last two years 'cause I've said it so much. But at the end of most services, we say, grab the card in your seat back. It's called the all in challenge and give me a year of your life. And I want you to run the play. I want you to run the play. I want you to taste and see that the Lord is good. So what would it look like in your life if you had a didn't miss year in church? What would it look like if you said you know what, the sports can wait, the activities can wait. Coming to church on Sunday is a Saturday night decision. So whether I'm tired or not on Sunday, as for me and my house, we're gonna be in church every single Sunday.

Freedom groups are kicking off. You know what, I've been dealing with some bitterness, some resentment. I've got some hurt in my life. You know what, I've got an addiction. I've got something that's been holding me captive. You know what, I'm gonna take a step. I'm gonna come to freedom groups this semester. I'm gonna go all in. You know what, first Wednesday, October, November, December, I'm gonna mark out my counter. I'm gonna be here in the room. I'm gonna receive the presence of God. You know what, I'm gonna join a life group. I'm gonna join the dream team. I'm gonna be baptized if you haven't been baptized yet. What's holding you back from going all in? And I tell you, if you go all in, you do everything that's on that card. You read the Bible in a year. You come to freedom conference, get filled with the baptism, the Holy Spirit. I'm telling you, you do all of those things and your life doesn't get 1% closer to Jesus in the year. Come find me and I hope you find it on the church. But I don't believe I'm ever gonna have to say that because Jeremiah says, you seek me and you find me when you seek me with all of your hearts. So the opposite of that verse would be, so if you seek me and try to find me

without all of your heart, you're never gonna find me. Somebody's saying, I tried that Jesus thing. It didn't work. Of course, it didn't work because you didn't go all in. When God's word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. My favorite thing to hear is, bless me every single time. When I'm out in the community, I'll see someone at a store, at a restaurant. And they'll come out to me and then say, Pastor Dan, you were right about that all in challenge thing. I took that challenge, it works. And then suddenly, most times, they'll start to get a little tear in their eye and they'll start telling their story of what the Lord has done in their life for the last six months or the last year. And every single time, they'll say, these are, thank you, Pastor Dan. And I said, no, no, don't thank me, thank me. I was just a vessel. It's the Lord that will change your life. It's the Lord that will work in your life. And that's the seventh proof. That's the seventh one. And it's the most powerful. And that is that the Holy Bible has life-changing power.

So don't take it from me. I get paid to do this. I got paid to stand up here and preach to you every Sunday, right? Ask somebody who doesn't do this as their job. Pastor Dan, it's your job to do that. Go ask somebody else then. Because I'll tell you the truth. Here's what it says in John chapter eight. If you hold onto the Word of God, listen, make that mental image in your mind. If you hold onto the Word of God, it's not holding onto it. Like it's a coffee cup in the morning that you drink for a few moments and then you're onto your rest of your day and you forget about that coffee cup. It's not a Sunday morning, 9/30, hour and 10 minute service and I'm on to the rest of my day. And I don't think about or live in any of the things that we're talking about on Sunday. It's not something that you just do as part of your day. If you hold onto my teaching, you really are my disciples. Here's what's going to happen when you start holding. You might not feel anything right away when you place your arms around it, but you're going to start to know it. And that word in the Greek, the word for know,

it's the word ginosco, it's an intimate term. It becomes personal. It gets deep down on the inside of you and when you know that truth, that truth will set you free. That's why I want you here this Wednesday night. 6/30 for worship and prayer for 20 minutes and then leading into freedom in this fall semester because you can't walk this thing out on your own. It's important for you to read the word of God. It's important for you to be in church every Sunday, but you need a community of believers. You need two or three people that are going to look you in the eye and tell you what the truth of the word of God says. And as you study it in community, you find power, you find answers, you find hope in a world where there's so much chaos, you find peace. Oh, I just want to say this to someone today, apart from Jesus that doesn't know him in a real way. I wish you had my peace that I have this morning. I wish you had my joy that I have this morning that you know that my home is in heaven and I'm just passing through this life. I'm an alien of this world. I don't have everything that I want, but in Christ, I have everything that I need. And I'm asking you to hold on to the word of God and watch it transform your life. Look at me, everyone, look at me. Look at me in the eyes, it has transforming power.

So I wrote a prayer and I'm not asking you to pray this prayer because I will never make you do something that you don't want to do. I'm not asking you to pray this prayer unless you believe. pray it all out loud together. Okay. This is how we'll close. Here's what it says. Dear God, from this day forward, I will accept the Bible as your flawless word to me. And I'll make it the final authority for my life, even when I don't understand it, when it's not popular, easy, or even when I don't like it. You are God and I am not. Thank you for loving me enough to speak to me through your word. I want to love your word, learn your word, live your word. If you're with me today in person, online, behind bars, wherever you're watching from, let's pray this out loud together if you mean it. Say, dear God, from this day forward, I will accept the Bible as your flawless word to me. And I'll make it the final authority for my life, even when I don't understand it, when it's not popular, easy, or even when I don't like it. Come on, make this your prayer today. You are God and I am not. Thank you for loving me enough to speak to me through your word. I want to love your word, learn your word, live your word. Come on, let's bow our heads.