The Validity of the Bible

Presented By Mark Mickelson on December 13, 2008

The Bible record is valid and true. But it's not what we understand about the Bible that makes the difference, it's what we do with it. If you live it, this life works.

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The Bible is the Word of God, it's inerrant, there's no mistake in it, at least in the original text, it's complete, it has everything we need to understand and know about God's plan for our own salvation. We believe that in part by faith, taken on faith that what God says is true, that He's provided what we need to understand. We believe that in part because this Christian life works if you live it. The Christian life doesn't work for everybody because everybody doesn't actually live this life! If you live it, this life works. We believe in part, again, that the Word of God is inerrant and complete because the Bible is consistent because it makes sense. John Gould, a member there in Kennewick is in a technical writing class, now that he's retired, he's gone back to college so he's always working on something, but he has a technical writing class and he's working on a project where he's assessing religious attitudes and values, generally on the campus so younger people, and he has a survey that he designed and he handed it out and he made this assessment and he's asked them various questions. But what it showed, because he asked me if I couldn't be there this week, before he turned it in, we could discuss the assessments that he had on his project. But most of the people that he surveyed were seeking some sort of value or meaning in life, most, but they were not generally seeking it through organized religion or the Bible. So they wanted to know what life's purpose was and what they would do that would be of value but they weren't looking to religion for the answer. Again, we believe the word of God is inerrant and complete; we're in a society thought that is not looking to that Word for the answers to their questions. The Bible does not make sense to everyone. It should make sense to us and yet there are questions raised about the Bible text and the examples that are there.

Richard Dawkins wrote the book, The God Delusion, and I've mentioned it before, I've read it one time, partly at least in coming back from one of my trips and his main focus is to take examples in the Bible and poke holes in the Bible record to cause questions to be raised on the text. If some element of the Bible is silly or doesn't make sense or appears to be foolish, then the whole text is called into question. Abraham offered up Isaac as an offering, as a sacrifice to God, at least he was willing to — that doesn't make sense to the secular mind. Lot got drunk and had sex with his daughters, that looks really bad and yet Dawkins would say, but here we have Abraham is the father of the faithful as such, Lot is listed as being righteous, but the Bible says that Lot was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked — can you answer the question about Abraham? Can you answer the question about Lot? Because people will take examples in the Bible such as those and they'll toss them back and say, look at this! How can you believe in something that has a basis such as this?

If God tells me to do something, I'm going to do it. Now if someone else tells me that God told me to do it, maybe not. We don't go to war, but you know what — when God tells me to fight, I'll fight, I'll do that, He hasn't told me to do that. When will we fight? Well, we'll raise up in the air to meet Jesus Christ in the air, we turn down to this earth for the Battle of Armageddon, maybe we'll fight — but it will be because God said so, not just because man decided.

The Bible doesn't have all the record of Lot's life, Lot did not molest his daughters, his daughter's molested him, he was drunk — shouldn't have gotten drunk but he did, but his daughter's took advantage of him. The Bible says he was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked, that doesn't mean there weren't troubles or trials or problems in his life. Life also is a process; we see that in our King David as it was recorded who will be a leader in Israel. He is our king in that sense, we're spiritual Israel. David's life had mistakes and trauma and serious bad decisions at times in it and yet God was working with him and corrected him and rebuked him and restored him as a result.

God simply did not intend for everyone to understand His words and He didn't intend them to understand it so that He might have mercy on them all. Look at Matthew 11:25 — Jesus here had rebuked certain here in their example who had not paid attention or been responsive to the example that He had set and He said, you know if these miracles had been done in Sodom, then some of those people would have paid attention and they would have turned from their evil ways. It would be easier for Sodom in the judgment than for some of you, then it goes on:

Matt 11:25 — At that time Jesus answered and said, "I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes."

God's words were hidden from those who were wise and powerful in that society and in ours and has been revealed effectively to babes, in many respects those who are little or small in societies ways.

V. 26 — "Even so Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son and he to whom the Son will reveal Him. Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest in your souls. My yoke is easy, My burden is light."

Christ said if you understand it will have meaning — My words will have meaning because I have opened your mind and this life will work for you. Christianity is a way of life that has to be lived. Matthew 13:10 — the purpose of parables. How long since we've addressed the purpose of the parables? It's been awhile since I've addressed it, I don't remember when I addressed it!

Matt 13:10 — The disciples came and said to Him, "Why do You speak in parables?" Of course parables are nice stories and most people look at parables as, well that makes the meaning clear. He answered and said unto them, "Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given." Even when Christ told the parable to the disciples, they would say, what is the meaning of that? What does that mean and He would explain it. The point being, the people to whom the explanation was not given didn't understand. We have the answer so it seems easy to us.

V. 12 — "Whoever has, to him more will be given and he will have abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him, therefore I speak to them in parables because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear nor do they understand." And it goes on to quote a prophecy from Isaiah: "Blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears for they hear."

But why, why did God hide the meaning of His words from mankind? Out of mercy. Romans 11, follows along a little further.

Romans 11:29 — The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. God calls us, He will certainly finish what He has given, it is up to us to be responsive.

V. 30 — For as you were once disobedient to God...now he's speaking to a Gentile audience, to Romans here...yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience...the Jews...even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you, they may also obtain mercy. For God has committed them all to disobedience...or unbelief, in that same sense...that He might have mercy on all. Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out.

So mankind has had the truth and the meaning of the Bible these illustrations hidden from them, so that they will not become accountable for their disobedience, the penalty of sin is death, they are accountable to death but they also have the resurrection to understanding. And so God has committed them to disobedience so that He will have mercy on them all. You and I are supposed to understand the Bible.

Today I want to address a couple of, at least, of the questions that are raised in regard to the Bible record. And the question comes down to, why did God allow man to go his own way and still continue to work through him? And the answer is, out of mercy. Mankind has always gone his own way, we don't have a clue how far we are into this society I imagine. I cannot believe that we see ourselves clearly. The materialism, the consumption, the entertainment. We are in our society deeper than we probably see. So is everybody else. So were other servants of God no different than us. Genesis 6 shows how quickly the world became evil prior to the flood and indeed, why God decided that He would turn and destroy mankind and start over again, cleanse the whole slate. Genesis 6:9 says:

Gen 6:9 — This is the genealogy of Noah. He was a just man, perfect in his generations, Noah walked with God. It mentions Shem, Ham and Japheth. It says:

V. 11 — The earth also was corrupt before God and the earth was filled with violence. So God looked on the earth and indeed it was corrupt, all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth and God said to Noah, "The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them, behold, I will destroy them with the earth."

Filled with violence — everyone had simply turned and begun to go their own way. God said, I will remove them from the earth. Ecclesiastes 7 portrays a different time, with a little different focus but it includes the perspective from Solomon, apparently. Ecc 7:27.

Ecc 7:27 — "Here is what I have found" says the Preacher...this is just a different way of restating Genesis 6 from what I could see...adding one thing to the other to find out the reason which my soul still seeks but I cannot find." People in general want to know the meaning of life and what our values should be, but we live in a society where religion is no longer for them the answer and certainly not the Bible record. But notice where this comes in:

V. 28 — One man among a thousand I have a found, but a woman among all these I have not found.

So Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines and he wonders why he didn't have a very good perspective. But it wouldn't matter that you could argue that men are one in a thousand and women are zero in a thousand, that's not the point, the point is that everybody does their own thing, goes their own way, makes their own choice and even Solomon said he couldn't find anybody, I mean one in a thousand is not a bunch, but I just couldn't find anybody I could depend on or I could trust. But you couldn't depend on or trust him either. It just said, everybody goes their own way.

And so why has God allowed man to go his own way? Because everybody did and the man who served him and women who served him were called out of that, but how far did they come? Where we'd like to say we've come a long ways, I wonder how far we have really come, as society slides, sometimes the Church slides right behind but keeps our distance. We could compare ourselves to two decades ago, or three or four, some of us, and we would see cultural differences that are probably dramatic. Things that we have actually gotten used to that back then would have been very offensive. In fact, they wouldn't have existed even in society, things that in some cases we probably have become used to ourselves today; it is simply how this has played out.

So God allowed man to go his own way because man was determined to do so but out of mercy He still used individuals and He still worked through them to fulfill His purpose. See God has a plan, obviously He does, by the creation. There was a plan God put in place and man threw it away and said, I don't want it, and God said, OK, I'm going to make a plan whereby I restore that to the earth and that's what we see and we should be able to explain that, we should be able to understand how that restoration took place and why Israel was allowed to do as they did and God continued to work with them, why sometimes the servants of God did as they did and God continued to work through them.

I want to look at the law first because the law is a question that comes up in our society. Many would claim the law has been done away. The young men who came to our house awhile back from the Mormon church next door and began to talk about it and I said, Well, you know if there is no law, I can go out and commit adultery. Oh no, you can't do that! Well, then there must be law that's in place, then what happened to the Sabbath?

There is a way to see a distinction between the law that existed prior to Sinai, the law that existed after Sinai and the law that exists today and we ought to be able to explain that. Galatians 3:19 — I think that is a huge issue in terms of how people look at the Bible today. I remember one of the leaders of the Church of God, years back, saying, Well you know, if you're going to keep the Sabbath then you have to be willing to wear tassels! Not the same, there are certain things that were always there and there were certain things that were added and the things that were added were added for a reason.

Gal 3:19 — What purpose does the law serve? Now it's talking about the law, in this context here, but it's going to go down and say the law of what? This is the law then of the sacrifices and the law that was added, ok? What purpose does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions.

What does it mean, the law was added? It means there is a period, a body of law that was added to the law that was already in place. There is more law, there was an increase in the law and the reference is to Sinai. It was added because of transgressions. What does that mean? Sin is lawlessness; King James says sin is the transgression of the law. Romans 4 said, Where there is no law, there is no transgression, so if it's not actually codified in the sense that God said so, if it's not part of God's will in that sense, it isn't a sin. If it didn't say, if God didn't intend for us, it didn't say, do not steal, then stealing would be ok. And God said indeed, do not! So it says the law was added because of transgressions, because of sin. The law that was added was a reminder of sin, it was something we were given to do, we, Israel back then, was given to do in order to remind them that sin has a consequence. When you sinned you had to give a sacrifice, you had to do a penalty, if you were unclean you had to be outside the camp, there were items of duties and behaviors that they were given to do to remind them of sin. Now that changes biblically and we should understand that, but let's go forward:

V. 19 — ...till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made...the Seed, Jesus Christ. So there is a body of law that was given at that time to Israel, to remind them of their sins and the consequences of their sins, that would last until the time of Jesus Christ, till the Seed should come...to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator.

Now a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God is one, who is the mediator of the Old Covenant? Moses? Who is the mediator of the New Covenant? Jesus Christ.

V. 21-22 — Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! If there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. But the scripture has confined all under sin that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

V. 23 — Before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law...constantly being reminded, constantly being shown, this is the consequence of sin...for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. After faith has come, we're no longer under a tutor...therefore the law is done away?

Excuse me, what law was done away in Christ? The sacrificial law, the priesthood, the sacrifices the temple services, the duties and little official responsibilities and the uncleanness and all of the legislation that went with it to point out the consequence of sin, that was the law that was added, was the law that we are no longer under, no longer under the tutor in that respect. It's important to understand. Hebrews 10 emphasizes this.

Heb 10:1 — The law, having a shadow of the good things to come...it portrayed something, it wasn't like it was just useless, it had meaning...and not the very image of the things...it was a substitute...can never with these same sacrifices...talking about the same law...which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. All they can do is remind you of your sins but it doesn't make you perfect. It says:

V. 2 — For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshippers, once purged, would have no more consciousness of sin. If you gave a sacrifice and you were clean, then you didn't need to offer again. But in those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every year, but it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.

So the law that was added was a law that was a reminder of sin that would live and be used and be active until the time of Jesus Christ and then it would no longer be needed, we would no longer have to use that part of the law in our daily lives. So, go back to the Bible. What was the law that was added? The Sabbath was established at creation, that's clear, Cain killed Abel and it was a problem, therefore, "Thou shalt not kill...or murder...as it's recorded in the Ten Commandments was clearly in place from the beginning. Noah took seven pairs of clean animals on the ark, only one pair of the unclean, clean and unclean meats — there's no such thing as clean and unclean food, there was no unclean food because it's not food, it's meat, so clean and unclean meat was in place back, obviously, at Noah's time, but from creation. Abraham tithed to Melchizedek so you can go through and see that the basic moral law of God was always there because it was made for man that was the point. The law that was given to Israel was added to that, laid along side as Galatians describes and that was the sacrificial law, the priesthood, the tabernacle, the temple, the ceremonies and it was given to them in a sense, to give them something to do to portray sin. Jeremiah 7 reinforces that.

Jer 7:21 — Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, "Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat meat....He said, you're wasting your time...I did not speak to your fathers or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices."

Now He restored the Sabbath to them, He restored the Passover to them, but He didn't restore sacrifices and offerings as He brought them out of Egypt. He added that at Sinai at that point in time.

V. 23 — "But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice and I will be your God and you will be My people. Walk in all the ways that I've commanded you that it may be well with you. Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, they walked in the counsels and the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward. Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have even sent to you all My servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them. Yet they did not obey Me, or incline their ear, but stiffen their neck and they did worse than their fathers. Therefore, you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not obey you...they're going to do just as they please...you shall also call to them but they will not answer you."

So God gave them, in that sense, "busy work" that had meaning in terms of what it would portray, but it wasn't the real thing. He added it to them because of transgressions and it would be taken away by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the sacrificial laws, the priesthood, tabernacle, temple and the package of law that tied in in that way. Hebrew is the book that portrays the priesthood of Jesus Christ and the transition from the old covenant to the new covenant in the church. Heb 9:9 is important in this regard because it goes through the first covenant, earthly sanctuary, tabernacle, lamp stand, shew bread, altar, ark and it goes through all the references to the priesthood and the service and it says:

Heb 9:9 — It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to conscience. And it was concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of reformation.

What is the time of reformation? Anybody in here ever been to reform school? Come on, admit it! My brother's went to reform school, they couldn't find me to take me with them, it was very temporary but I just didn't go home until all the reform school people picking up the children were gone home as well, but reform school is where you take, at least, I don't know if they even have reform school now, we had it when I was young. But it was where you go and change, and you bring them back to where they were suppose to be. You know, you bring in bad little boys and you send out good little boys out the other side, you send them back home and they're polite and happy and well mannered. So it says, until the time of reformation — in Hebrews 9.

Well the ordinances and the tabernacle and the sacrifices lasted until it was time to restore things to the way they were suppose to be in the beginning, times of reformation, that's what that means. Who was it in the Bible that was suppose to begin the process of restoring all things? Who was to restore all things? It says Elijah right? Matthew 17, this ties in very very cleanly and the timing is just exactly what God intended.

Matt 17:10 — And His disciples asked Him (because this is just after the transfiguration so now the subject is being brought up) saying, "Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must first come?" Jesus answered and said to them, "Elijah truly is coming first and will restore all things."

Restore what? Restore things to the way it was in the beginning and what God intended all along. But you see, man went his own way, the whole earth was evil by the time of the flood, as God brought the flood as a result, the whole earth was evil basically at the time of Solomon and it has happened over and continued on and it is the way it is today — In the last days, perilous times will come, everybody is going to become lovers of themselves and looking after their own circumstances and their own needs. And so the reference here was made to the fact that Elijah truly is coming first who will restore all things, he will begin the process to take things back to the way they were suppose to be in the beginning.

V. 12 — "But I say to you that Elijah has come already, they did not know him but did to him whatever they wished. Likewise, the Son of man is also about to suffer at their hands." Then the disciples understood that He spoke to them of John the Baptist.

So it says, Hebrews 9, sacrifices were to exist until the time of reformation, until the time when they were going to reform and restore things, begin to, back to the way it had always been. Those laws had been added to the law that already existed, but they were only for a period of time and that was until the time of Christ. Now, question arises, in the Old Testament, all the way through, why did Israel go to war when Jesus Christ in the New Testament said, love your enemies, do good to those who spitefully use you. Then why weren't they doing that all along? Because man did their own thing and went their own way and that is one of the things that had to be restored. That's part of the reformation, to bring things back to the way it was suppose to have been. God never intended Israel to have to go to war, Israel determined that they would go to war, they determined that they would fight. Why do we not join military service? Because we're not going to fight because God said that is not our place. How do we know so? Because we see the record of the New Testament. Some will argue, well what about the record of the Old Testament? We should be able to explain. Exodus 14:13 — crossing the Red Sea, Pharaoh's chasing down behind Israel:

Ex. 14:13 — Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today you shall see again no more forever. The Lord will fight for you and you shall hold your peace."

Israel did not have to fight their way out of Egypt, they simply had to leave when God said it was time to go, they didn't have to take up arms, God took care of that, fought off the armies of Pharaoh and destroyed them. Exodus 23 goes on down now toward a forward focus, looking into the land that they were to be given, the Promised Land.

Ex. 23:20 — "Behold, I send an angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place that I have prepared. Beware of him and obey his voice, don't provoke him, for he will not pardon your transgressions, for My name is in him. If you indeed obey his voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. My angel will go before you and bring you into the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites; I will cut them off.

You shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them, nor do according to their works; you shall utterly break down their sacred pillars. So you shall serve the Lord your God and He will bless your bread and your water. I will take sickness away from the midst of you. No one will suffer miscarriage or be barren in the land; I will fulfill the number of your days."

Great blessings to follow, Israel didn't have to battle their way into the land, God says I'm going to drive them out Myself.

V. 27 — "I will send My fear before you, I will cause confusion among all the people to whom you come, I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you, I'll send hornets before you and will drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites...I will not drive them out before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beast of the field become too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out from before you until you have increased and you inherit the land." Israel did not have to fight their way into their Promise.

V. 31 — "I will set your bounds from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the River. I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand and you will drive them out before you. You shall make no covenant with them nor with their gods...God said, they'll just be afraid of you, they'll run from you, I'll send My fear ahead of you...They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against Me. If you serve their gods it will surely be a snare to you."

So God, in delivering Israel from Egypt said you don't have to fight, I'll take care of Pharaoh. In preparing to go into the land of Canaan, the Promised Land, God said, I will drive them out with bees and hornets and they will leave slowly as you fill the land and absorb it yourself. So the time came for that process to take place...Numbers 13, the spies are sent into the land to spy it out, they are scared to death at all the giants and all the people that are there and the prosperity they see that would be used, they felt, against them, and came back with an evil report. Numbers 14, Israel refuses to enter the land of Canaan. God says fine, you're going to die and your children, who you worried about that they would suffer, are the ones who will inherit it in your place. Israel said, Oh no, that won't happen now, we're going to go take the land, they run up, they fight and they are defeated and they are driven back away because God said, I am not with you. Israel chose to fight. God in His mercy, continued to use them. So you have the record of the fights and the battles and the wars that were there, I mean look at Samson — how long did God have to put up with him going out with harlots, chasing around and partying and still using him and waiting and working — and in the end, his heart was right. In the end he died, he is listed as one of those who was faithful before God. He wasn't faithful before God for a good part of his life, but God was going to use him to fulfill His plan and He carried it to the end.

Why has God allowed man to do his own thing? Because man is determined to do so and God is still going to fulfill His purpose, and out of mercy He has used Israel even when Israel did not obey. Corrected them, restored them and had to correct them again, but His plan never never turned aside. God's plan was one day I am going to restore to this earth what I had intended for it from the beginning. So Elijah, John the Baptist was going to restore all things — he's the one who led the way and proclaimed repentance to prepare the way for Jesus Christ. The restoration took place first in the Church. God worked with Israel, the Church is spiritual Israel, the restoration went from God's people Israel to God's people, spiritual Israel. The restoration that takes place with you and I is suppose to be what God intended from the beginning. No wars, no evils, no turning away and making our own choices.

One of the other choices that was made in the Old Testament that comes up sometimes is that of polygamy and the men having more than one wife and also the issue of divorce. Why did God allow some of His servants to practice polygamy and why did God tolerate divorce? Those two questions are very closely connected, but they're answered in Matthew 19. Polygamy was one of those things where man decided to go his own way. God in His mercy did not stop using some of the men and servants through whom He was going to fulfill His plan, but it was not what God intended in the beginning, just as divorce was not intended, polygamy was not either.

Matt 19:1-5— It came to pass, when Jesus had finished these sayings, He departed from Galilee and came to the region of Judea, beyond the Jordan. And great multitudes followed Him and He healed them there. The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?" He answered and said to them, "Have you not read that it was He who made them at the beginning and He made them male and female, and said, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh." Polygamy was never intended, it was two becoming one flesh, not four, five, six or twelve! So God said, I never meant it to be that way, man chose that for himself.

V. 6 — "So then, they are no longer two but one flesh, therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate." So they said, "Well then why did Moses command to give then a certificate of divorce and put her away?"

V. 8 — He said, "Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts...out of mercy God did not totally reject mankind who became evil but He allowed them to continue to serve Him in various ways...permitted you to divorce your wives, from the beginning it was not so." Which means in the time of restitution, it will no longer be so either. When things are being restored, it will not be so in the Church.

V. 9 — "I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery, whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery." His disciples said, "If such is the case of the man and his wife, it is better not to marry." Man, it's hardly worth the risk!

Well ok, so the disciples had a little bit of a problem themselves! But it was out of mercy that God continued to work with mankind at all. He could have easily just destroyed again everyone from the earth.

Questions arise over things in the Old Testament record in general; I think we should be able to answer them. We should give an answer for the hope that is in us, with meekness and fear, because we are being restored. We've been brought back to the truth that God intended from the beginning, so there should be an understanding of what that is and what happened in between and one day the whole world will follow. In the book of Acts 3, very closely after the initial account of Pentecost:

Acts 3:19 — "Repent therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out so the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord...here we go, times of refreshing, the restoration, but it's looking now, be converted so this will come from Jesus Christ...that He may send Jesus Christ who was preached to you before, Whom heaven must receive until the time of restoration of all things which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began."

Because this is what God intended from the beginning, but this is the book of Acts, Christ has already been crucified; He's already with the Father. So the point is, the restoration of all things is when the knowledge of the earth is full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea — and that's what God's purpose ultimately is and that's what His intent was for the earth in the beginning.

So man went his own way, did his own thing, invented his own doctrines and beliefs and customs and traditions and God out of mercy, did not destroy them all from the face of the earth and not continue with His plan. And He called us out to be restored now and He prophesies in the book of Acts and in other places, as it says from the fathers that were preached here to the prophets since the world began, that this is what God eventually intends to do. All the stories in the Bible are there for a reason, they're not just there to cause us a little bit of trouble when somebody brings it up and kind of sets it before us to see if we have the answer, but they're there for a reason the ultimate reason is for you and for me. I Corinthians 10:4 — he's talking about Israel going through the Red Sea type of baptism, ate the same spiritual food, drank the same spiritual drink.

I Cor. 10:4 — They drank the spiritual Rock that followed them, the Rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased, their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.

V 6 — These things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted...to the intent that we would know not to just go our own way, do our own thing, that we would be the ones being led by God's spirit to turn and take on His mind and do His will and do it His way, to be restored to the way God intended it all along.

V. 7-10 — Do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, "The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play." Nor let us commit sexual immorality as some of them did, as in one day, twenty-three thousand fell; let us not tempt Christ as some of them also tempted and were destroyed by serpents; or murmur as some of them also murmured and were destroyed by the destroyer.

V. 11 — Now all these things happened...you know, not just so that Richard Dawkins could go out and write a book and poke holes at people and challenge their faith...all these things happened as examples and they were written for our admonition...that's the point...on whom the ends of the ages have come.

The Bible record is valid and true and we need to understand that it is, that it is dependable as God's word. But it's not what we understand about the Bible that makes the difference, it's what we do with it. These examples were for us so that we would be restored so that the time of restoration, restitution would come on the earth, so that the time one day, would be when restitution and restoration would fill the entire earth, the examples were for us.

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The Bible record is valid and true. But it's not what we understand about the Bible that makes the difference, it's what we do with it. If you live it, this life works.

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Mark Mickelson

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