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There is a longing

within every human heart

A hunger in the soul.

A thirst that can’t be satisfied.

Deep inside we long for something more,

more than what is in our world.

King Solomon circa 950 BC

“I wanted to see what was
worthwhile for men to do under heaven

during the few days of their lives.”

“I devoted myself to study...”

“I thought in my heart,

'What then do I gain by being wise?

For the wise man, like the fool, will be forgotten.' ”

“I tried cheering myself with wine and embracing folly.”

“I refused my heart no pleasure.”

“Yet... everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”

“I undertook great projects.”

“I built...”

“I bought...”

“I owned...”

“I became greater...”

“Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied...”

“So my heart began to despair...”

“Generations come and generations go...”

“...Even the memory of them is forgotten.

Their love, their hate and their jealousy have long since vanished.”

“...No man knows when his hour will come.”

“...Death is the destiny of every man...”

“...I was still searching but not finding.”

There is One,

One who can bring meaning, fulfillment, joy

and peace to your life.

For He is the only One who can fill the void.

He is the only One who can quench the thirst within our souls.

And until we find Him there is a restless yearning,

a longing that He put in our hearts.

Because just as thirst is necessary

to draw someone to water,

these longings within our heart were meant to call us to God.

You see, within the heart of every human being,

He has placed eternity.

And nothing but the eternal God can truly satisfy us.

And it is through His book, the Bible,

that you will be introduced

to this eternal God,

the One you were made to know.

But, before we actually open up the Bible

and begin to see what it says,

there's some important facts about the Bible that we need to know.

The Bible is actually a collection of 66 individual writings, called books.

And even the name 'Bible' comes from a Greek word that means 'books'.

And if you open up your Bibles,

in the first few pages you'll find a list of these books.

And these books have been divided into two different sections

known as the Old and New Testaments.

Also, you'll find to make reading easier,

they've divided each book up into chapters and verses.

Throughout this series, the reference for each verse that we're going to read

is going to appear on your screen

so that you can see the name of the book,

the chapter and the verse.

So, follow along in your Bible

to verify the accuracy of everything that you hear,

so that your confidence will be in what God says.

Throughout time,

the Bible has consistently remained the world’s best seller.

The Bible, or parts of it,

have been translated into almost 2,500 different languages!

It is the most quoted,

most read,

most printed book in all of history.

This book has influenced, touched

and completely transformed countless lives throughout the ages.

But where did the Bible come from? Who wrote it?

God used 40 different men to write the Bible.

But what you need to understand is

this book came about in a totally unique and fascinating way.

Not only did many of these men never meet,

many of them were never alive during the same time period!

The Bible was written over a period of 1,600 years.

And many of these men lived in completely different places,

ranging from ancient Babylon to Rome.

The manuscripts that make up the Bible

were written in Europe, Asia, and Africa,

and recorded in three different major languages of that day:

Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.

Not only did the authors live in different locations

and during different time periods,

they also came from a wide range of professions.

One of the authors was an Egyptian prince,

another, a military leader,

others were fisherman,

even some of them were shepherds.

One of the authors was a doctor.

And even another was a tax collector for the Roman Empire!

And that's just naming a few of the authors!

But somebody might think that such diverse circumstances

would produce a book that is full of contradictions.

But the truth is, that these diverse manuscripts

came together perfectly.

2 Timothy 3:16 explains

that the Bible was breathed out by God.

And in 2 Peter 1:21

it tells us that the words of this book

never had their origin in the will of man.

“...but men spoke from God

as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

He was telling them exactly what they should write.

For example, Jeremiah 1:2 begins with this phrase:

" And The word of the Lord came to him."

There are over 3,800 phrases

just like this one found in the Bible.

Each one emphasizing that God is the true author of this book.

Because God is the author of the Bible,

it means that this account is accurate historically.

Throughout the ages,

archaeology has confirmed the accuracy of the Bible

thousands of times.

Even the most minute details, of little known passages

have proven to be historically sound.

For example, in chapter 20 of Isaiah

there is an event in which,

"...the supreme commander sent by Sargon, King of Assyria came to Ashdod

and attacked and captured it."

Historians were familiar with the Assyrian empire

but a king named Sargon attacking a city called Ashdod?

Some critics of the Bible

actually questioned the veracity of this account.

But in 1843, a startling discovery was made

in an excavation in northern Iraq

in a village called Khorsabad.

Paul-Émile Botta, a renowned archaeologist,

unearthed the palace of King Sargon.

And there to the astonishment of the critic,

was engraved on the palace walls

a description of the same event described in the Bible-

the attack of King Sargon on the city of Ashdod.

Time Magazine once ran an article

on the former Dean of Archaeologists in Palestine,

Dr. Nelson Glueck.

The article, 'The Shards of History' said that:

“With the Bible's help, Dr. Nelson Glueck

has discovered more than 1,000 ancient sites in the Transjordan area

and another 500 in the Negev.”

Dr. Nelson Glueck wrote a book called 'Rivers in the Desert'.

In it he said

there has never been an archaeological discovery

that has contradicted the Bible.

The world renowned Scottish professor

of the University of Oxford,

Sir William Ramsay,

concluded that this book

was not only a completely reliable historical account,

but that it had to be the very words of God Himself.

The Bible contains hundreds of prophecies foretelling future events.

In Psalm 22, King David described crucifixion

400 years before it was used as a form of capital punishment.

In Isaiah 44, a King called Cyrus is mentioned by name

150 years before his reign.

In Isaiah 39, he foretold the fall of Jerusalem

100 years before it was taken over by the Babylonians.

Also in a book called Daniel,

there are 135 prophecies in chapter 11 alone.

Prophecies so precise

that they describe major alliances,

battles, marriages and even murder.

And this same book

foretold the rise and fall of four major empires:

the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Grecian and Roman.

Critics don’t know what to do with this book.

The Bible has one running plot

that connects all the details and events together.

Throughout all the drama and descriptions,

there is one theme that makes the whole story make sense.

And it’s this one message of the Bible,

this central plot

that we are going to watch unfold as we study this book together.

But unlike any other book,

the message of the Bible is divine

and it has the power to completely transform your life.

So, what is this eternal story of the Bible?

Well, what better place to start, than the beginning?

The first thing we can learn about God,

is right here in the very first verse of the Bible.

So open your Bible to Genesis 1:1.

[Genesis 1:1] "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

As you can see, there's no explanation here.

The verse simply says,

that in the beginning God was already there.

That before time began, God already existed.

That's because God is eternal.

He never had a beginning

and He will never have an end.

That’s hard for our minds to grasp.

That’s because we humans are confined by time.

We can talk about the past and those yesterdays.

We can remember all those days that have gone by,

but we can't go back in time.

We can make plans for tomorrow and even dream about the future,

but we can't go ahead in time, even one minute.

But God isn’t like that.

God is outside of time.

God is present in the past, the present and the future,

all at the same time.

Psalm 90 verse 2 puts it this way,

[Psalm 90:2] "From everlasting to everlasting you are God."

He never changes, never gets tired, and never diminishes.

God is eternal.

Just as God is not limited by time, God is not limited by space.

We humans are completely limited by space.

No matter how much we’d like to be in more than one place at a time,

we can’t.

No matter how fast we travel,

or how much our schedule demands of us,

we can only be in one place at a time.

But God? God is not like that.

The Bible says that God is all present.

In other words,

God is everywhere at the same time.

That is why David in Psalm 139 wrote,

[Psalm 139:4,7-10] “You hem me in behind and before,

you have laid your hand upon me.

Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

if I make my bed in the depths you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the seas,

even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.”

There is something else that we discover about God

in these first four words.

The book of Genesis was written in a language called Hebrew.

And the word for 'God' in Hebrew is 'Elohim'.

But you may be thinking,

“Why is that so important?”

In Hebrew, if you wanted to say 'angel'

you would say 'seraph'.

But if you wanted to say 'angels' plural,

you would say 'seraphim.'

So are you beginning to catch on?

In Hebrew, whenever you see

an 'im' on the end of the word

that makes it plural.

So, why does the word for God, 'Elohim' have an 'im' on the end of it?

The plural ending found in the name 'Elohim',

is the very first indication we have in the Bible

that the One God reveals Himself to be three persons:

that God is triune.

The word 'triune' is a term adopted by scholars

to describe a characteristic of God

found throughout the Bible.

Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum,

the renowned Hebrew scholar wrote

that the Hebrew scriptures portray God to be one in three persons.

And the New Testament sheds even more light on the subject,

revealing Him to be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--

each one being eternal, equal and distinct.

The truth is, is that God is infinite.

For us humans who are finite, to fully comprehend God

would be like expecting little ants to be able to learn how to read.

It would be impossible for them to grasp

even the most basic concepts of our language.

In the same way, in this book,

God has told us many things about His nature.

But it would be impossible for us to fully comprehend God.

But, we can trust what the Bible says to be true about Him.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

God, He is the Designer and Creator

of everything that exists.

But, what material did God use to create everything?

If you’re following along in your Bible, look with me at verse three.

[Genesis 1:3] “And God said; 'Let there be light.' and there was light.”

So what’s written here? It says "And God said".

It doesn't say "And then God put together",

or "And then God formed", or "God molded". No!

By the power of the word of God, He created everything.

God created all things,

and in Hebrews 1:3 we read

that by His power He continues to hold all things together.

So, if God can create all things,

and also sustain the universe in all of its vastness,

what could be impossible for God?

Nothing!

Guess what? More than fifty times in the Bible,

God is described as all-powerful.

Yet, when you face a serious problem in your family

or in a relationship,

when the challenge of one more day of school

or of work, or of just life seems too much,

when your future seems to offer no hope, where do you go?

With whom do you seek counsel?

Go to your Creator,

because what’s impossible for you, is not impossible with God.

It’s through the Bible that you will get to know Him.

And this all-powerful God says in His Word,

"Come to me.

Trust in me.

I care for you."

Not only is God all-powerful,

but the Bible says that God is all knowing.

Have you ever stopped to consider

how much knowledge it would take

to design the heavens and the earth

with foresight to every intricate detail and function?

We look in wonder into giant telescopes

at how vast, and incredibly complex our universe is.

Or we peer into microscopes at finely tuned biological organisms

with DNA structures we are just now beginning to unravel.

The world’s best scientists power up the largest machines

ever known to man,

to study atomic systems so complicated,

we will never fully understand them.

But the designer of this universe does,

for God is all knowing.

Psalm 147:5 says-

[Psalm 147:5] “Great is our Lord and mighty in power;

His understanding has no limit.”

What is even more amazing, is that this incredible God

understands everything and knows the

complexities of this universe,

this same God, chose to know me personally.

So many times we feel so alone, and we think

"No one even knows I exist!"

But it is through this book, the Bible,

that you will be introduced to someone

who not only knows your name,

but chooses to know every single thing about you.

Psalm 139 says,

"O LORD, you have searched me, and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise;

you perceive my thoughts from afar.

Before a word is on my tongue,

you know it completely, O LORD.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

too lofty for me to attain.

For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother's womb.

Your eyes saw my unformed body;

all the days ordained for me were written in Your book

before one of them came to be."

You were created by this wonderful God.

He is the One your heart longs for.

That's why God has given us His word:

the Bible.

Because knowing Him is the reason for this life,

in a relationship that goes beyond this life

and lasts forever.

And today, could be just the beginning.

There is a longing within the heart of every human being.

This week, take time out to notice the brevity of life

and the restlessness that drives people everywhere

to pursue the satisfaction of the thirst within their souls.

Remember that these longings in your heart

were meant to call you to God,

the only One who can truly satisfy you.

To record the words of the Bible,

God used forty different authors,

living in different time periods,

in different places,

writing in three different languages.

Yet, amazingly from these diverse manuscripts,

one eternal story emerges.

You too, can examine the thousands of archaeological discoveries

that verify the Bible’s accuracy

and the astounding prophecies foretelling future events.

As you do, remember that the very words of this Book

were written by God for you.

In Genesis 1:1, we saw how God is eternal and triune.

We also saw how He is all-powerful,

creating the world by simply speaking!

The challenges you face in your life may seem impossible,

but they are not impossible for this Almighty God

who says,

"Come to Me! I care for you!"

We saw God is all-present.

As the Designer of this universe,

He understands its every single intricate detail and function.

You may feel alone, thinking no one even knows you exist.

But this same God chooses to know you personally

and already knows everything about you.

Now you have an opportunity to get to know Him

through His Word, the Bible.