The Book of Romans
Chapter 10, verses 9-13:

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,
and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him
from the dead, thou shalt be Saved. For with the heart man
believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto Salvation.
For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek:
for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

- First, write down today's date and the time right now and save it
so that you will always remember the day and time that you were saved. 

- Next, go out and buy yourself a Bible so that you can continue to grow in your relationship with God. 
Look for a Bible that is a Red Letter Edition (Jesus' words in red so it is easy to see and read). 
You can even read the Bible online at www.bible.com and read a lot of different translations and find the one that is best for you.

- The next step is to find a church where you (and maybe even your family and friends) can go to worship.
You may even want to continue to read the Bible online until you find a church
so that you can be sure to purchase the same kind of Bible that they read from during service. 
 

Is Jesus Christ a Legend, Lunatic, Liar, or Lord and GOD?

Jesus' distinct claims of being God eliminate the popular ploy of skeptics who regard Him as just a good moral man or a prophet who said a lot of profound things. So often that conclusion is passed off as the only one acceptable to scholars or as the obvious result of the intellectual process. The trouble is, many people nod their heads in agreement and never see the fallacy of such reasoning.

C. S. Lewis, who was a professor at Cambridge University and once an agnostic, understood this issue clearly. He writes:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the son of God: or else a madman or something worse."

Then Lewis adds:

"You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

In the words of Kenneth Scott Latourette, historian of Christianity at Yale University: "It is not His teachings which make Jesus so remarkable, although these would be enough to give Him distinction. It is a combination of the teachings with the man Himself. The two cannot be separated."

Jesus claimed to be God. He didn't leave any other option open. His claim must be either true or false, so it is something that should be given serious consideration. Jesus' question to His disciples, "But who do you say that I am?" (Matthew 16:15) has several alternatives.

First, suppose that His claim to be God was false. If it was false, then we have only two alternatives. He either knew it was false or He didn't know it was false. We will consider each one separately and examine the evidence.

Was He a Liar?

If, when Jesus made His claims, He knew that He was not God, then He was lying and deliberately deceiving His followers. But if He was a liar, then He was also a hypocrite because He told others to be honest, whatever the cost, while He himself taught and lived a colossal lie. More than that, He was a demon, because He told others to trust Him for their eternal destiny. If He couldn't back up His claims and knew it, then He was unspeakably evil. Last, He would also be a fool because it was His claims to being God that led to His crucifixion.

Many will say that Jesus was a good moral teacher. Let's be realistic. How could He be a great moral teacher and knowingly mislead people at the most important point of His teaching -His own identity?

You would have to conclude logically that He was a deliberate liar. This view of Jesus, however doesn't coincide with what we know either of Him or the results of His life and teachings. Wherever Jesus has been proclaimed, lives have been changed for the good, nations have changed for the better, thieves are made honest, alcoholics are cured, hateful individuals become channels of love, unjust persons become just.

William Lecky, one of Great Britain's most noted historians and a dedicated opponent of organized Christianity, writes:

It was reserved for Christianity to present to the world an ideal character which through all the changes of eighteen centuries has inspired the hearts of men with an impassioned love; has shown itself capable of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments and conditions; has been not only the highest pattern of virtue, but the strongest incentive to its practice.... The simple record of these three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists.

Historian Philip Schaff says:

How, in the name of logic, common sense, and experience, could an imposter-that is a deceitful, selfish, depraved man-have invented, and consistently maintained from the beginning to end, the purest and noblest character known in history with the most perfect air of truth and reality? How could He have conceived and successfully carried out a plan of unparalleled beneficence, moral magnitude, and sublimity, and sacrificed His own life for it, in the face of the strongest prejudices of His people and age? 70/9495

If Jesus wanted to get people to follow Him and believe in Him as God, why did He go to the Jewish nation? Why go as a Nazarene carpenter to a country so small in size and population and so thoroughly adhering the undivided unity of God? Why didn't He go to Egypt or, even more, to Greece, where they believed in various gods and various manifestations of them?

Someone who lived as Jesus lived, taught as Jesus taught, and died as Jesus died could not have been a liar. What other alternatives are there?

Was He a Lunatic?

If it is inconceivable for Jesus to be a liar, then couldn't He actually have thought Himself to be God, but been mistaken? After all, it's possible to be both sincere and wrong. But we must remember that for someone to think himself God, especially in a fiercely monotheistic culture, and then to tell others that their eternal destiny depended on believing in him, is no light flight of fantasy but the thoughts of a lunatic in the fullest sense. Was Jesus Christ such a person?

Someone who believes he is God sounds like someone today believing himself Napoleon. He would be deluded and self-deceived, and probably he would be locked up so he wouldn't hurt himself or anyone else. Yet in Jesus we don't observe the abnormalities and imbalance that usually go along with being deranged. His poise and composure would certainly be amazing if He were insane.

Noyes and Kolb, in a medical text, describe the schizophrenic as a person who is more autistic than realistic. The schizophrenic desires to escape from the world of reality. Let's face it; claiming to be God would certainly be a retreat from reality.

In light of the other things we know about Jesus, it's hard to imagine that He was mentally disturbed. Here is a man who spoke some of the most profound sayings ever recorded. His instructions have liberated many individuals from mental bondage.

Clark H. Pinnock asks:

Was He deluded about His greatness, a paranoid, an unintentional deceiver, a schizophrenic? Again, the skill and depth of His teachings support the case only for His total mental soundness. If only we were as sane as He!

A student at a California university told me that his psychology professor had said in class that "all he has to do is pick up the Bible and read portions of Christ's teaching to many of his patients. That's all the counseling they need."

Psychiatrist J. T. Fisher states:

If you were to take the sum total of all authoritative articles ever written by the most qualified of psychologists and psychiatrists on the subject of mental hygiene -if you were to combine them and refine them, and cleave out the excess verbiage - if you were to take the whole of the meat and none of the parsley, and if you were to have these unadulterated bits of pure scientific knowledge concisely expressed by the most capable of living poets, you would have an awkward and incomplete summation of the Sermon on the Mount. And it would suffer immeasurably through comparison. For nearly two thousand years the Christian world has been holding in its hands the complete answer to its restless and fruitless yearnings. Here ... rests the blueprint for successful human life with optimism, mental health, and contentment.

C. S. Lewis writes:

The historical difficulty of giving for the life, sayings and influence of Jesus any explanation that is not harder than the Christian explanation is very great. The discrepancy between the depth and sanity ... of His moral teaching and the rampant megalomania which must lie behind His theological teaching unless He is indeed God has never been satisfactorily explained. Hence the non-Christian hypotheses succeed one another with the restless fertility of bewilderment.

Philip Schaff reasons:

Is such an intellect -clear as the sky, bracing as the mountain air, sharp and penetrating as a sword, thoroughly healthy and vigorous, always ready and always self-possessed -liable to a radical and most serious delusion concerning His own character and mission? Preposterous imagination!

Was He Lord?

Jesus was not a liar or a lunatic.
The only other alternative is that He was the Christ, the Son of God, as He claimed.

The issue with these three alternatives is not which is possible, for it is obvious that all three are possible. Rather, the question is, "Which is more probable?" Who you decide Jesus Christ is must not be an idle intellectual exercise. You cannot put Him on the shelf as a great moral teacher. That is not a valid option. He is either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord and God. You must make a choice. "But," as the apostle John wrote, "these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and" -more important- "that believing you might have life in His name" (John 20:31).

http://www.whoisjesus-really.com/
 

About the Bible
 

1. How many books are in the Bible?
The Bible contains 66 books, divided among the Old and New Testaments.

2. How many books are in the Old Testament?
There are 39 books in the Old Testament.

3. How many books are in the New Testament?
There are 27 books in the New Testament.

4. What does "testament" mean?
Testament means "covenant" or "contract."

5. Who wrote the Bible?
The Bible was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit by over 40 different authors from all walks of life: shepherds, farmers, tent-makers, physicians, fishermen, priests, philosophers and kings. Despite these differences in occupation and the span of years it took to write it, the Bible is an extremely cohesive and unified book.

6. Which single author contributed the most books to the Old Testament?
Moses. He wrote the first five books of the Bible, referred to as the Pentateuch; the foundation of the Bible.

7. Which single author contributed the most books to the New Testament?
The Apostle Paul, who wrote 14 books (over half) of the New Testament.

8. When was the Bible written?
It was written over a period of some 1,500 years, from around 1450 B.C. (the time of Moses) to about 100 A.D. (following the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ).

9. What is the oldest book in the Old Testament?
Many scholars agree that Job is the oldest book in the Bible, written by an unknown Israelite about 1500 B.C. Others hold that the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) are the oldest books in the Bible, written between 1446 and 1406 B.C.

10. What is the youngest book in the Old Testament?
The book of Malachi, written about 400 B.C.

11. What is the oldest book of the New Testament?
Probably the book of James, written as early as A.D. 45.

12. What is the youngest book in the New Testament?
The Book of Revelation is the youngest book of the New Testament, written about 95 A.D.

13. What languages was the Bible written in?
The Bible was written in three languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek.

14. When was the Bible canonized?
The entire New Testament as we know it today, was canonized before the year 375 A.D. The Old Testament had previously been canonized long before the advent of Christ.

15. What does "canon" mean?
"Canon" is derived front the Greek word "Kanon," signifying a measuring rod. Thus, to have the Bible "canonized" meant that it had been measured by the standard or test of divine inspiration and authority. It became the collection of books or writings accepted by the apostles and leadership of the early Christian church as a basis for Christian belief. It is the standard by which all Christians throughout the ages live and worship.

16. When was the first translation of the Bible made into English?
1382 A.D., by John Wycliffe.

17. When was the Bible printed?
The Bible was printed in 1454 A.D. by Johannes Gutenberg who invented the "type mold" for the printing press. It was the first book ever printed.

18. What is the oldest almost-complete manuscript of the Bible now in existence?
The Codex Vaticanus, which dates from the first half of the fourth Century. It is located in the library of the Vatican in Rome. There are older fragments of the Bible that are still preserved however-- the oldest being a tiny scrap of the Gospel of John was found in Egypt, dating back to the beginning of the second century. (It is currently in the Rayland's Library in Manchester, England).

19. What is the longest book in the Bible?
The book of Psalms.

20. What is the shortest book in the Bible?
2 John.

21. What is the longest chapter in the Bible?
Psalm 119

22. What is the shortest chapter in the Bible?
Psalm 117

23. What is the longest verse in the Bible?
Esther 8:9

24. What is the shortest verse in the Bible?
John 11:35

25. Which book in the Bible does not mention the word "God?"
The book of Esther.

26. Who was the oldest man that ever lived?
Methuselah who lived to be 969 years old (Genesis 5:27).

27. Who were the two men in the Bible who never died but were caught up to heaven?
Enoch, who walked with God and was no more (Genesis 5:22-24). Elijah, who was caught up by a whirlwind into heaven (II Kings 2:11).

28. Who does the Bible say was the meekest man in the Bible (not including Jesus)?
Moses (Numbers 12:3).

29. How many languages has the Bible been translated into?
The Holy Bible has been translated into 2,018 languages, with countless more partial translations, and audio translations (for unwritten languages). (This is an enormous amount of translations. In comparison, Shakespeare, considered by many to be the master writer of the English language, has only been translated into 50 languages.)

30. Is the Bible still the best-selling book in the world?
Yes, indeed!