Mercy Culture Church

There can be no true revival without the Bible.

Hilkiah = God is my share, portion or inheritance

The greatest inheritance we can receive, is the word of God! It is the greatest treasure you can find and possess!

Question: If I were Hilkiah today, why would I give the Bible to this Josiah generation?

When the church shifts its focus to becoming contemporary, sooner or later it will become temporary. Culture fads shift and change, but the Word stands forever.

A generation without absolutes is asking, “Someone tell me who I am! Please define me!”

Current ethnic cults and religious movements targeting East Fort Worth:
Hebrew Israelites believe there’s salvation through ethnic identity, and that black people are the true Israelites.

KMT believes that Egyptian religions are the true religion, and Black people should leave Christianity, which they say is a copy of KMT, and go back to their African ancestral roots and worship the gods of KMT or Egypt, (Horus, Set, Osiris, Ra, Isis, etc).

African Ancestral worship is also on the rise. Beyonce led the way with her music recently her song Hold Up, where she transformed int Yoruba Goddess “Oshun.” Her album Black is King was full of African Ancestral worship.

Nation of Islam believes that Allah is God, and that Jesus is not the son of God, and that white people are blue eyed devils.

Five Percenters believe the black man is god, and the black woman is mother earth, and the gods and earths must come together to repopulate. They believe 10% know the black man is god, and they try to suppress and oppress the 85% through socio economic means, education, etc. 5 Percenters believe their job is to war against the 10% (white people) and educate and empower the 85%.

Popular Hip hop artists are 5 Percenters: Eric B. and Rakim, Tribe Called Quest, Poor Righteous Teachers, KRS One, Big Daddy Kane, and Public Enemy.

The Moors are a Islamic religious black ethnic cult, that follows teachings of their leader and prophet the honorable noble Drew Ali.

The Old Testament
- The 39 Old Testament books have a few main categories: the Law, the Prophet & the Writings.
- In Hebrew Bible: The Law, The Prophet & The Writings.
- In English Bibles: Law, History, Poetry/Wisdom, Prophecy.
- The “Canon” was the description of the final compilation of the books.
- Canon is a GREEK Word that means “Rule Or Standard”.
- The Old Testament was completed around 400 BC, the oldest complete copy of the Hebrew Bible is about 1,000 AD
- That’s A 1300 year time span from earliest copy of earliest book to the completion.
- Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered that were copies before the time of Christ! This brought the date range closer to 1000 years.
- After the 100 years they were 95% identical copies and contextually pure.[Most differences were spelling]
- In The OT God revealed Himself to Abraham and the storyline continued and was supported by God’s servants & prophets.
- God continued to reveal Himself and His people closely stewarded these holy encounters.

The New Testament
- The New Testament was Complied and Recognized By 290 AD.
- The New Testament was written 50-100 AD. Earliest Completion from 125 AD.
- A Time Span of 25 years (Not even a full generation span).
- The New Testament has 24,000 copies in multiple languages with 99.5% identical copies and textually pure.
- By the end of the first century, most of the books of the NT were already recognized as Scripture by the early Church.
- When Alexander The Great conquered the world Greek became the common language.
- 3rd Century BC the canon was translated in the Greek known as the Septuagint.
- Jesus would have used the Hebrew Bible as His primary Bible, not the Septuagint. But the NT commonly quotes the Septuagint, since the NT was written in Greek, and so the authors would quote the Greek Bible of the day.
- Before Paul wrote his letters, the Gospel traditions would have been circulating orally.
- Paul Began writing letters to the church that began to circulate.
- The Gospels soon followed.
- The church then “canonized” the New Testament.
- 4th Century Emperor Constantine Authorized the compilation of the Old Testament & New Testament into one book possibly for the first time.
- In the 1400’s Johannes Gutenberg Invented the Printing Press and Began Printing The Bible!

Question: How were the books in the Bible selected?

Answer: By God!

God in His providence chose what would have been preserved!

There is not another book in the history of the world that has withstood more attacks, scrutiny, and demonic resistance than the Bible!

Question: How do we know we can trust the accuracy of the Bible?

Question: What other historical text do you question the reliability of?

If the critics want to disregard the New Testament, then they must also disregard ALL other ancient writings by Plato, Aristotle, and Homer.

The Bible is the most historically accurate and preserved document in the history of the world!

Probability = the extent to which something is probable; the likelihood of something happening or being the case.

Christ to be born in Bethlehem Ephratah (Micah 5:2)
Christ to be preceded by a messenger (Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1)
Christ to enter Jerusalem on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9)
Christ to be betrayed by a friend (Psalm 41:9; 55:12-14)
Christ to be sold for 30 pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12)
The money Christ was sold for be thrown to “the potter” in God’s house. (Zechariah 11:13)
Christ was silent before his accusers. (Isaiah 53:7)
Christ to be executed by crucifixion as a thief! (Psalm 22:16, Zechariah 12:10, and Isaiah 53:5)

The answer was 1 to the 17th Power
=
1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000

We can trust that the bible is the word of God because only God could orchestrate 66 books from over 40 authors spanning 1500 years from 3 continents in 3 languages all pointing to one savior on one cross!

The Bible is alive, so it brings life!

The Bible is a weapon made for the enemy, not people!

1. Read your Bible

2. Study your Bible

3. Meditate on your Bible

הָגָה hāg̱āh: A verb meaning to growl, to groan, to sigh, to mutter, to speak; used figuratively: to meditate, to ponder. The Lord told Joshua to meditate on the Law day and night (Josh. 1:8), and the Psalms proclaimed people blessed if they meditate on the Law (Ps. 1:2).

4. Sing your Bible

5. Read your Bible out loud

6. Memorize your Bible

זָכַר zāḵar/ מַזְכִּיר mazkiyr: A verb meaning to remember, to mention, to recall, to think about, to think on, to be remembered, to recall, to acknowledge, to mention, to make known. The basic meaning indicates a process of mentioning or recalling either silently, verbally, or by means of a memorial sign or symbol. The verb often means to mention, to think about.

7. Pray your Bible

8. Preach your Bible

The Bible changed Israel in Josiah's day, but how has the Bible changed America?

Slave Bible

"About 90 percent of the Old Testament is missing [and] 50 percent of the New Testament is missing," Schmidt says. "Put in another way, there are 1,189 chapters in a standard protestant Bible. This Bible contains only 232."

I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels.

- Frederick Douglass

The first introduction to the Gospel to the enslaved wasn’t European missionaries, but the preaching of the Gospel in Africa after the Acts 2 outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

In other words, they were Christians when the were forced on the boat, and Christians when they got off the boat in Jamestown.

Christianity is not the white man’s religion, nor the black man’s religion, it belongs to Christ alone! It’s not about white power or black power, but God’s power!

Stories of:
Morte’s Conversion
Harry Hoosier/ Francis Asbury
Uncle Jack / Henry Evans/ Josiah Bishop
William Seymour/ Frank Bartleman
SM Lockridge/ Billy Graham

To this Josiah generation God is crying out, “Don’t you remember?