Four Big, Liberating Categories

The chorus of an old gospel song, “The Solid Rock,” goes like this: “On Christ the solid Rock I stand / All other ground is sinking sand.”  It is so, so absolutely true! 

The world’s uncertainty is palpable.  All of it, stem-to-stern, is a vanity, and a very short and temporal one at that.  How marvelous, then, is the salvation that was purchased for whosoever will by Christ Jesus, God’s only begotten Son, on the Cross of Calvary? Sense the glorious power in the following passage, John 1:10-12:

10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

Now watch this amazing demonstration as temporal vanity is transformed into eternal glory, John 11:25-26:

25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:

26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?

The promises that God makes to His children are sourced and secure in heavenly places.  They are not of this world.  They are certain.  When the Word of God is mixed with childlike faith, all things are possible. 

Dear visitor, have you been BORN AGAIN?  John 3:3:

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.    

To enter the Kingdom of God, you must be BORN AGAIN, literally born a second time, this time of the Spirit of God.  Today can be your day to begin the most amazing journey of a lifetime.  In a moment, I will invite you to follow me in a simple prompt.  Follow from your heart, and with intent, and everything will change for you.  Today, all your sin will be washed away by Christ’s cleansing blood. Today, all your shame will be gone. Today, all of the devil’s bondages will be broken like so much straw. 

Joel 3:14:

Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision. 

Today, your soul is in your own hand.  Here is the simple prompt I promised: Click onto Further with Jesus for childlike instructions and immediate entry in the Kingdom of God. NOW FOR TODAY’S SUBJECT.

GOD SAID, Leviticus 11:19-20:

19 And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat.

20 All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you.

GOD SAID, Galatians 6:7:

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

GOD SAID, John 11:25-26:

25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:

26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?

MAN SAID: If I’m to be truly honest about my loud challenge, “Prove it!” (as in prove the God of the Bible), I must admit two things:

1. I’m confident it can’t be done; and

2. I also sure hope you can’t prove anything, because if you do, I’ve got a problem.  I’ll need to repent of my sinful ways or I’ll have hell to pay.

Now THE RECORD: Welcome to GodSaidManSaid feature 1100 that will once again contend for the faith and prove the supernatural veracity of the Holy Bible, every jot and every tittle.  All of these faith-building features are archived here in text and streaming audio for your edification, as ammunition in the battle of Words, and for the redemption of the lost sons and daughters of Adam.  Every Thursday eve, God willing, they grow by one.

Thank you for coming.  May God’s beautiful face shine upon you with Light and Truth.

I need to know it’s true.  The stakes are much too high to entertain error.  Untold millions have surrendered their lives to the lowly Christ of Calvary, where this Christ died a naked pauper.  His followers have been, and are still being, persecuted and ridiculed; they have had their homes and wealth confiscated, have been exiled, starved to death, fed to wild animals, burned at the stake, stoned to death, and even crucified.  Christ’s followers have suffered all manner of mental cruelty and anguish and various other imaginative evils.  What relationship of truth and proof could command such unwavering devotion? The answer is the proof of a soul set free and this proof reigns supreme over the most exalted cogitations of men.  But please don’t confuse the meaning of that statement, as though students of the Scriptures cannot compete at a scholastic level! The Bible more than “competes;” it dominates. 

As mentioned above, the truth and proof of the redeemed is of the Spirit of God, and it resides in heavenly places.  Romans 8:15-17:

15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

Yes, it is true: The truth and the proof of the inerrancy of God and His Bible, and of the salvation of the BORN AGAIN, is literally out of this world.  However, remember, we are commanded to prove all things.  I Thessalonians 5:21:

Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.     

The Bible is one confirmable, magnificent proof, one right after another, and it all begins in heavenly places. Ephesians 1:3:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:  

GodSaidManSaid uses a four-step proof platform to establish the Holy Ghost bonafides of the majority-text Holy Bible.  The four categories are listed on the navigation bar to your left, and they are:

1. Archaeology;
2. Prophecy;
3. God Said, Man Said; and
4. Historicity of Jesus Christ.   

In this feature, we will define these four categories, cite a marvelous example or two of each category, and report the number of features each category holds.  The Word of God is truly shock and awe. 

1. ARCHAEOLOGY: The archaeology category includes additional disciplines such as paleontology, geology, microbiology, and ancient history.  Category number one establishes the Bible as a perfectly accurate, even flawless, record of all history it decides to address.  This category also certainly includes the miraculous, from the literal, six, twenty-four hour days of creation and forward. 

Genesis 2:20-23:

20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

📣The archaeologists have unearthed ancient, pre-Moses (who penned the first five books of the Bible), Sumerian tablets that describe the creation account.  Dr. McCoy, author of Scripture Insights from Science and Archaeology writes:

The Sumerian creation account on six tablets known as the Enuma elish “when on high” dates to about 2500 BC.  In Babylon, it was recited on the fourth day of the New Year’s festival.  Creation is described ex nihilo.  The first tablet describes the time when heaven and earth did not exist.

One tablet describes the creation of a woman who is named Nin ti in Sumerian, translated as “the lady of the rib” and “the lady who make live.”  Thus, well before Moses, these concepts were known, but badly garbled, with accounts of gods and goddesses fighting for control. [End of quotes]

📣Noah’s flood? Impossible, they claim!  If the flood is actually true, then there is a God who involves Himself in the affairs of men and that would mean that all will have to stand before this God of the Bible at the Great White Throne Judgment.  “Can’t be!  Can’t be!” They shout, but fish fossils are found on every mountain peak, a sea monster was unearthed in Nebraska, shark fossils in Cleveland, whale fossils in the desert, and flood strata covers ¾ of the earth’s surface.  Did we mention that 500 ancient, societal accounts also speak of a similar event?  They can’t connect the dots. 

Presently, the archaeology category has 132 features. 

2. PROPHECY: Prophecy establishes God’s authorship of Holy Writ.  The prophecy of future events places God’s Word far above man’s abilities to predict the future.  The following excerpts are from the GodSaidManSaid feature, “Prophecies of Christ and Proof that God Is—Part II:”

God’s prophesies predicting the future are not just to warn and inform the faithful, but they are also God-given proofs of the supernatural, inerrant nature of Holy Writ.  Isaiah 41:21-23:

21  Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob.

22  Let them bring them forth, and show us what shall happen: let them show the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come.

23  Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together.

When the laws of probability are attached to prophecy, it illustrates the utter supremacy of the God of the Bible.  When the calculations of probability are applied, and the results state one chance in five billion that a man could have made the Biblical prophecy being considered and see it come to pass, then there can only be one other conclusion.  The other conclusion is that the chances are 4,999,999,999 out of 5,000,000,000 that the prophecy was made by God.  But there’s more.  One, we have the prophecy.  Two, we have its probability.  And three, we also have the record of history, and so it is with Jesus Christ, the King of Glory. 

The virgin birth, the ministry, the crucifixion, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ are thoroughly documented by God’s Old Testament prophets, hundreds and thousands of years in advance. 

Approximately 500 years before Christ, the prophet Amos writes in chapter 8, verses 9 and 10:

9  And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day:

10  And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.     

The fulfillment is recorded in Matthew 27:45:

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.

The following excerpt is from Grant Jeffrey’s book, Jesus: The Great Debate:

Thallus and Phlegon, two pagan historians who lived in the first century, both reported an unusual darkness that blotted out the sun for three hours during the Passover in the year A.D. 32, the year of Jesus’ crucifixion.  These reports confirm that the prophecy of Amos and Matthew’s historical records are accurate.  [End of quote]

More from Jesus: The Great Debate:

Another remarkable historical reference to this supernatural darkness is found in the manuscript of another pagan historical writer from Lydia named Phlegon, a man who was granted freedom by the Emperor Adrian.  In approximately A.D. 138, Phlegon noted the astonishing fact that this “great and extraordinary eclipse of the sun distinguished among all that had happened” occurred “in the fourth year of the two hundred and second Olympiad,” which was the nineteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar as emperor of Rome.  In his Chronicle (A.D. 300), the Christian historian Eusebius quoted from Phlegon’s sixteen-volume Collection of Olympiads and Chronicles as follows:

All which things agree with what happened at the time of our Saviour’s passion.  An so writes Phlegon, an excellent compiler of the Olympiads in his thirteenth book, saying: ‘In the fourth year of the two hundred and second Olympiad there was a great and extraordinary eclipse of the sun, distinguished among all that had happened before.  At the sixth hour the day was turned into dark night, so that the stars in the heavens were seen, and there was an earthquake in Bithynia which overthrew many houses in the city of Nice.’  So writes the above named author.

Furthermore, Phlegon indicated that the darkness that covered the earth began at the sixth hour — precisely the same hour recorded in Matthew 27:45.  [End of quote]

Bible scholars have catalogued over 300 Scriptural prophecies of Christ.

Statistician Dr. Peter Stoner calculated the odds of a man making just 48 of the Biblical prophecies of the coming of Jesus Christ and having them coming to pass.  The odds of a man making these predictions and having them come to pass are one in one followed by 144 zeroes—a number so huge that language can’t label it.  The chance of any man just making eight of the prophecies and having them come to pass is one in a hundred million billion.  If a mortal has one chance in a hundred million billion of successfully making these predictions, then the other side of this equation would simply say that all the numbers in a hundred million billion with the exception of one, are the chances these prophecies were made by a supernatural God. [End of quotes]

Presently, the prophecy category is home to 130 features. 

3. GOD SAID, MAN SAID: THE RECORD: It is from this category that GodSaidManSaid takes its name.  Each feature in this category certifies the accuracy of Galatians 6:7:

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

In this section, we cite the Bible’s position on a topic or subject, cite carnal man’s contrary position, and then catalogue all the deadly results of carnal man’s disobedience.  The following truth is central to this category: All of God’s commandments, directives, and precepts have inherent within them a blessing or a curse.  Because all of God’s commandments, directives, and precepts are the inerrant truth, obeying them yields the fruit (the blessing) of doing the right thing.  Because all of God’s commandments, directives, and precepts are the inerrant truth, disobeying them yields the very deadly and damnable fruit (the curse) of doing wrong thing.  It is just that simple. The cardinal law of sowing and reaping cannot be denied.

Category number three covers a wide range of subjects, from Biblical history and its miracles to food, hygiene, sexuality, law and order, medical issues, and much more.  As a side note, inside each category, you will find subjects that are included in more than one of the four proof platforms.  An excellent example is that of Adam and Eve.  The following is from the GodSaidManSaid feature, “Sodom and Dots.”  You’ll just love this:

📣 When microbiologists overturned evolution’s long-embraced timeline and method of human origin, a serious head-scratching moment occurred.  Their long-held position was that man didn’t come from a single place, but was evolving from various locations all over earth.  But, microbiologists discovered that the entirety of today’s population came from the same common mother.  Tongue-in-cheek, they named her mtDNA Eve.  The next discovery that rocked the evolutionary boat was that all of today’s population came from one common father—he was dubbed Y-Chromosome Adam.  It is postulated that the coupling of this Adam and Eve took place around 200,000 years ago with another guesstimation of “maybe 60,000 years ago.” Imagine, one science writer had the brass to suggest that even 6,000 years ago was possible.  They can’t—or, I should say, most can’t—connect the dots. [End of quote]

The God Said, Man Said: The Record category establishes beyond any doubt that God’s Word is true and righteous altogether; it also clearly defines the consequences one must suffer for disobedience to, mockery of, and neglect towards God’s Word.  Here is an example near to home, God’s commandment concerning the bat.  Deuteronomy 14:11-20:

11 Of all clean birds ye shall eat.

12 But these are they of which ye shall not eat: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the osprey,

13 And the glede, and the kite, and the vulture after his kind,

14 And every raven after his kind,

15 And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckoo, and the hawk after his kind,

16 The little owl, and the great owl, and the swan,

17 And the pelican, and the gier eagle, and the cormorant,

18 And the stork, and the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat.

19 And every creeping thing that flieth is unclean unto you: they shall not be eaten.

20 But of all clean fowls ye may eat.

Not only are we commanded NOT to eat of unclean creatures, we are also directed not to touch the carcase of unclean creatures (Leviticus 11:8). 

You’re familiar with the coronavirus.  There may be some question on whether this deadly pandemic originated in a wet market or a lab in China, but there is no question concerning the bat’s role in it.  Consider these paragraphs from the GodSaidManSaid feature, “The Coronavirus: You Won’t Believe It!”  

The headlines tell a grim story:  

🦇 Nature, February 3, 2020: “A Pneumonia Outbreak Associated with a New Coronavirus of Probable Bat Origin.”

🦇 Science Daily, February 10, 2020: “Coronavirus Outbreak Raises Question: Why are Bat Viruses so Deadly?” The subhead states: “Bats’ fierce immune systems drive viruses to higher virulence, making them deadlier in humans.”  Several paragraphs from Science Daily follow:

A study of cultured bat cells shows that their strong immune responses, constantly primed to respond to viruses, can drive viruses to greater virulence.

It’s no coincidence that some of the worst viral disease outbreaks in recent years—SARS, MERS, Ebola, Marburg, and likely the newly-arrived 2019-nCoV virus—originated in bats. 

🦇 The sub-headline in a February 12, 2020 feature on Vox  states: “Horseshoe bats are known to carry coronavirus which can infect humans.”  A few excerpts follow from an interview Vox feature writer Brian Resnick did with Jonathan Epstein:

To better understand why health officials want to know which animals were involved in the new outbreak, I called up Jonathan Epstein.  He’s a veterinarian and an epidemiologist with the EcoHealth Alliance who was involved in tracking down the animal source for the SARS outbreak. 

Question: What do we know right now about where this novel coronavirus came from?

Epstein:  I think we have very strong evidence that supports the idea that this virus ultimately comes from bats.  But we don’t know what other animals may have been involved.

Question: What do you mean by “what other animals may have been involved?”  Is it possible that this didn’t come directly from bats?

Epstein: A good example here is the story of SARS.  When SARS emerged in 2003, it was also in a live market in Southern China, in Guangdong.  It turned out people that were handling and trading civet [small, mostly nocturnal mammal native to tropical Asia and Africa] had a higher instance of exposure and infection to this virus.  Then they tested animals within the markets, and civets were found to be infected with the same virus that was infecting people.  

So, the assumption was made that people were getting it from civets, and civets were very promptly and publicly removed from markets and stamped out. 

But a very important study came out a few months after the epidemic looking at civets on farms that supplied the live animal markets, and it turned out that none of the civets that were being farmed had any evidence of exposure or infection to SARS coronavirus. 

That was important because this was not, in fact, a civet virus that was getting into the markets.  Civets were getting infected in the markets themselves, just like people. 

Resnick asks: So, what was giving civets SARS?  Was it the bats? 

Epstein: So, this is where I come in, and my colleagues.  We started working on SARS back in 2003, trying to understand what the wildlife reservoir was. 

And we found it to be bats, horseshoe bats specifically.  We now know that there’s a whole group—a whole diversity—of viruses related to SARS that are circulating in horseshoe bats. 

One of the viruses we identified with our partners at the Wuhan Institute of Virology back in 2013 is 96% similar to this novel coronavirus.  That gives us confidence that this new coronavirus also is a bat virus originally.

These bats are hunted and eaten in China, and in fact were brought into the markets in the case of SARS, and that is how other animals, including people, were infected.  [End of quotes]

Here we go again.  Another new, global field study is in and the discovery is that every commandment and precept in God’s Word has inherent within it a blessing or a curse.  Because the Word of God is the supernatural, inerrant truth, obeying it yields the blessing of doing the right thing.  Because the Word of God is the supernatural, inerrant truth, disobeying it yields the curse of doing the wrong thing.  God is not mocked. [End of quotes]

Today, the GodSaidManSaid category boasts an impressive 908 features.

4. THE HISTORICITY OF JESUS CHRIST: It is shocking to imagine that the world is full of Christ-deniers.  They deny His virgin birth; they deny His divine person, His miraculous world-changing ministry, His crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension into heaven; and, of course, they deny all the promises He made to the saints. Unfortunately for the willingly ignorant, the record shouts “Yes, JESUS CHRIST!” 

The following paragraph is from Lee Strobel’s book, The Case For Christ.  Strobel quotes famed barrister Sir Lionel Luckhoo concerning the legitimacy of the history of Jesus Christ, and even something as dramatic and gospel-central as the resurrection.  It reads:

That was also the assessment of Sir Lionel Luckhoo, the brilliant and savvy attorney whose astounding 245 consecutive murder acquittals earned him a place in The Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s most successful lawyer.  Knighted twice by Queen Elizabeth, this former justice and diplomat subjected the historical facts about the Resurrection to his own rigorous analysis for several years before declaring, “I say unequivocally that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof which leaves absolutely no room for doubt.”  [End of quote]

The following paragraph is from the GodSaidManSaid feature, “The Crucifixion and Resurrection of King Jesus:”  

The famous Jewish historian Josephus, who was born in 37 AD, not long after the death of Jesus, wrote concerning Jesus’ life.  In one of his books, Antiquities of the Jews, the following passage is found:

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure.  He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles.  He was [the] Christ, and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him: for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him.  And the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct at this day.  [End of quote]

The above passage has been hotly contested by the Jews and other liberal scholars.  Author Grant Jeffrey, who wrote the book, Jesus: The Great Debate, weighed in on this subject with the following statement:

For three centuries, a great debate has raged among biblical scholars regarding the authenticity of the text of Josephus about Jesus of Nazareth.  Many liberal scholars believe that this reference to Jesus Christ, to his brother James, and John the Baptist must be interpolations or forgeries by Christian editors in later centuries.  In other words, they have concluded that Josephus’ reference to Jesus could not possibly be genuine.  However, such an assertion of forgery requires significant proof.  If scholars had found dozens of ancient copies of Josephus’ book that failed to contain this passage, they would have some evidence that this material was not an original passage written by the Jewish historian.  Yet none of these scholars can produce a single ancient copy of Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews that does not contain this disputed passage on Jesus.  In his book History of the Christian Church, Phillip Schaff noted that all ancient copies of Josephus’ book, including the early Slavonic [Russian] and Arabic language versions, contain the disputed passage about the life of Christ.  No one has ever explained how a Christian editor could have altered each of these widely distributed versions during the centuries following their publication.  How could someone introduce a new paragraph in the middle of a complete text?  Why wouldn’t someone have detected this addition to the popular history?  [End of quote]

The following paragraph is from Evidence That Demands A Verdict:

Attempts have been made to show that Josephus could not have written this.  However, “this passage,” writes Michael Green in Man Alive, “was in the text of Josephus used by Eusebius in the fourth century.”  Also, it is reiterated by the most recent Loeb edition of his works.  And it is all the more remarkable when we remember that, so far from being sympathetic to Christians, Josephus was a Jew writing to please the Romans.  This story would not have pleased them in the slightest.  He would hardly have included it if it were not true.”  [End of quote]

Jesus Christ is the Lord of Glory and He is who He said He is, and so much more.  The GodSaidManSaid Historicity of Jesus Christ category hosts 20 features.

I need to know it’s true.  Everything depends on it.  IT’S TRUE, SAINTS! Rejoice and be glad!! It’s good, good news. 

GOD SAID, Leviticus 11:19-20:

19 And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat.

20 All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you.

GOD SAID, Galatians 6:7:

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

GOD SAID, John 11:25-26:

25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:

26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?

MAN SAID: If I’m to be truly honest about my loud challenge, “Prove it!” (as in prove the God of the Bible), I must admit two things:

1. I’m confident it can’t be done; and

2. I also sure hope you can’t prove anything, because if you do, I’ve got a problem.  I’ll need to repent of my sinful ways or I’ll have hell to pay.   

 

Now you have THE RECORD.

 

 

References:

Authorized King James Version

GodSaidManSaid, “Adam’s Rib and Woman”

GodSaidManSaid, “Prophecies of Christ and Proof that God Is—Part II”

GodSaidManSaid, “Sodom and Dots”

GodSaidManSaid, “The Coronavirus: You Won’t Believe It!”

GodSaidManSaid, “The Crucifixion and Resurrection of King Jesus”

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