The Right Path November 21, 2007

This past week has been a miracle for me. While I was beginning to understand that Christianity was probably from God, I still had some questions. Yes I prayed the sinners prayer, but questions and doubts still kept popping. I kept praying to God, “God, I want to believe but I am still having some big doubts. Please give me understanding, and please give me right guidance.”

At this point I still needed to be sure that the Bible was the inerrant word of God. I wanted to believe in it, but when I read it, the doubts came pouring in. Ok, I thought, one question at a time. Ok, God, show me.

One of my main problems was that I couldn’t shake the lie Islam teaches that the Bible is corrupted. You say, well you just called it a lie from Islam, so what is the problem? A big problem. When you are a Muslim, it is so closely like being in a cult, that it takes very hard work and diligence to let go of those beliefs, even if you don’t like them or want them. They are burned into your mind. One of the major beliefs of Islam about Christianity is that the Bible is corrupted.

With God’s guidance, I wanted to figure out what the oldest recorded manuscript is. If I can prove to myself that the Bible is not corrupted, then I can believe it is the word of God, and therefore I have to believe. In Islam, I learned to slam the Bible like crazy to find fault in the hopes of leading Christians away from their faith, and into Islam. Now when I read the Bible, I only see the beauty of it. That is amazing in itself, like God has given me new eyes to see with. Now I just need a new heart to feel it and believe it.

I started with John. I knew that he was an apostle, and for some reason, you can just fall in love with John’s writings. He was beloved of God, and I loved to read his words, yet God’s words I would soon realize.

One of the jokes in Islam about the Gospels is about having 4 apostles with no last names. What are you talking about? They would say Matthew who? Mark who? Luke who? John who? This way they would try to convince folks that no one writes a book and doesn’t put their name on it. Are you kidding me? John is brother of James, sons of Zebedee. Clearly written in the Bible. No mystery. It is there.

Then I thought, well, if John was written in 100 A.D., John would be a very old guy. He couldn’t have written it. Little did I realize, until today, that the countdown is at Jesus’ birth, not his death. His death is recorded as 30 A.D. or 33 A.D. by some scholars. John could easily have written the Gospel with his name. Suddenly, the Gospels became very real for me.

So then I started searching for Old Testament manuscripts to see what the oldest one discovered is. The Dead Scrolls were discovered in 1948. Everything started happening for me real fast. So much information. The Book of Isaiah was intact. I went first to the Jewish Bible, the Tanakh, to see what their book says about the coming Messiah. I discovered Isaiah 53, and Daniel 9. These are both in the Tanakh, that Jesus not only was our Messiah, but did indeed die for our sins. This was written before Jesus was born! The manuscripts are proof! The Bible must be the Word of God, and Jesus did die for my sins. I believe.

So much more happened than what I am writing, but just to show what really clinched it for me is that I learned that the Bible truly is the Word of God and that Jesus is that Word, and that He died for my sins, and rose again. This coincides with my dream I wrote about in The Sign.

 Who has believe our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground; he has no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.

He was taken from prison and from judgment; and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he has put him to grief; when you shall make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper inhis hand.

He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied; by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he has poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.  Isaiah 53.