The Bible: A Book You Can Trust
If you gathered a group of people together and asked them to close their eyes and point in the direction that they believed to be North, what would you see? Odds are you would see people pointing in every direction. Even if you asked them to firmly commit to an absolute "North" position without opening their eyes, the end result would still be people pointing in every direction based on their subjective opinions and internal perceptions of reality.
How do any of us know for sure where North is without a frame of reference? If you were lost in the Appalachian Mountains on a cloudy day without the sun for a guide and you needed to get to a shelter due East, how would you do it? With a compass, of course!
Unless we have a frame of reference, we're hopelessly lost. In life, unless God reveals Himself to us, we are hopelessly lost in seeking to find Him. Surely God must have provided a compass of some kind to show us the right way to go. We all know that lack of direction and bad choices can result in disastrous results not only for us as individuals, but also as families, towns, cities and nations. God knows that we need a compass. We believe that God has given us that compass in the Bible.
When polled, the majority of Americans say that they believe that the Bible is indeed God’s message for mankind and that it states the absolute truth. But when asked if they were committed to living their everyday lives in line with what the Bible says, they say ‘no’. What people are saying is that they believe the Bible IS God’s word and direction to them as long as it is convenient. In other words, it holds no ultimate authority for them. They've divorced the authority of the Bible from the reality of their everyday lives and made it irrelevant. As one social researcher put it, “American’s respect for the Bible is a mile wide and an inch deep.”
The issue of the authority of the Bible is an important one. If the Bible is what it says it is, then we must be careful to obey and believe all that it says, because it is God Himself who is talking to us. If it is not, then it is no more than a collection of good moral sayings subject to our judgment and critique.
Let’s consider then why we should take seriously the Bible’s claim to be the written word of God.
The Bible is Unique in Its Unified Message
The Bible was written over a 1,500-year span. Over 40 authors wrote it, and from every walk of life including kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, poets, statesmen, scholars, etc. It was written in different places: wilderness, a dungeon, in a palace, in prison, while traveling, in exile, during a military campaign. It was written at different times: war and peace. It was written during different moods: some from the heights of joy and others from the depths of sorrow and despair. It was written on three continents - Asia, Africa and Europe. It was written in three languages - Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.
Its subject matter covers hundreds of controversial subjects, yet with harmony and continuity. It has one theme, from beginning to end: God’s deliverance of man. Compare this with putting 10 authors together from the same country, language, generation, mood, and one controversial subject. What would you have? Twenty different opinions!
The Bible is Unique in Its Survival
Biblical scholar Bernard Ramm summarized the meticulous way the Jews took care of the Bible: “Jews preserved it as no other manuscript has ever been preserved. With their massora they kept tables on every letter, syllable, word and paragraph. They had special classes of men within their culture whose sole duty was to preserve and transmit these documents with practically perfect fidelity--scribes, lawyers, massoretes. Who ever counted the letters and syllables and words of Plato or Aristotle? Cicero or Seneca?”
Voltaire, the great French philosopher and politician was a committed atheist. It is said that before he died he requested two priests to be present on each side of his bed. The priests asked if he now wanted to confess his sins and seek God’s pardon. “No.” he replied, “I wanted to die like Jesus--between two thieves.” Voltaire boasted that Christianity and the Bible would be extinct in 100 hundred years.
Yet only fifty years after his death, the Geneva Bible Society used his printing press and his house to produce hundreds of Bibles. Today it is the world’s bestseller, in spite of numerous attempts over the last 3000 years by various governments and nations to destroy Christianity. For example, Romanian Communist dictator Nicolas Ceaucescu confiscated Bibles. He even turned a truckload of Bibles into toilet paper. Today, Ceaucescu is dead--shot before a firing squad--but most every Romanian home has a Bible.
Is the Bible the Word of God?
In a court of law, people are assumed innocent until proven guilty. It is the same way historical books are judged for their authenticity. Historicists assume the truth of a document until proven false. Let’s apply the test of truthfulness to the Bible.
The Proof of Fulfilled Prophecies
The Bible makes some astonishing claims as to its authorship. Consider some of the following passages from the Bible:
Isa.1:10 - Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah!
Jer.11:1 - This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD:…
Lk.24:25 - [Jesus] said to them, "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!"
II Tim.3:16 - All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness…
II Pet.1:20-21; 3:15,16 - Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.…Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
In these passages we see clearly that the authors believed they were writing the very words of God to men. Furthermore, the Bible has an internal self-destruct mechanism. It is found in Deuteronomy 18:20-22: "But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, must be put to death." You may say to yourselves, "How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD?" If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him."
We see from this passage that someone who claims to speak for God must be 100% accurate in his predictions. Otherwise he is not from God. Therefore the Bible must be 100% accurate in its future predictions or else it is not from God. The most popular prophets of our day--Edgar Cayce, Jean Dixon and others--are at their best 20% accurate. With that in mind, consider the following:
There are over 300 Old Testament prophecies relating to the coming of Messiah. The Old Testament was completed in 450 BC. The first Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, was completed in circa 200 BC. The chance that any man might fulfill just eight of these prophecies is one in 1017. To help you understand this, imagine the state of Texas 2 feet deep in silver dollars. Take one of those silver dollars and mark it with an “X”. Then get into a plane and fly across Texas (you would rather fly than drive. It takes two full days to drive it, and it would be pretty hard to drive over those silver dollars!). Somewhere over the state throw the silver dollar out the window. Then have huge bulldozers mix up all those sliver dollars. Then get into another plane and fly randomly over the state. Somewhere over the state of Texas you parachute blindfolded out of the plane. When you reach the ground you reach down and pick up the silver dollar with the “X”. That is the chance that a man would fulfill just eight of those prophecies. Yet Jesus Christ fulfills far more than those eight. While here on earth, He fulfilled the vast majority of the 300. The ones he has not fulfilled have to do with the future, which He has yet to fulfill.
The Proof of Transformed Lives
In John 7:17 Jesus said, “If any man is willing to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from Myself.” Over the centuries countless men and women have tested the truth of that statement and found it to be true. People such as St. Augustine--an atheist and playboy before becoming a Christian; Martin Luther--a religious man who was driven almost mad in his pursuit of spiritual perfection, and then was set free from religious bondage by the truth of God’s promise, “The just shall live by faith.” John Newton--a man who rejected the faith of his mother and chose to become a slave trader. In a dark hour of his life he remembered the truths his mother had taught him from the Bible at an early age. He embraced Christ and his teaching. He went on to become a powerful preacher against slavery, and wrote a popular hymn, “Amazing Grace.” In our own century there is Malcolm Muggeridge and Marvin Olasky--both famous editorial writers. Muggeridge was English, reared in an atheist family. Olasky was a radical communist on an American campus in the 70’s. Both men came to Christ and used their writing skills to influence people to follow Christ. These men were outspoken opponents of the Christian faith, and yet became conquered by the love of Christ. Their lives and words testify to the truth of God’s word, the Bible.
The Bible is a book unlike any other because it is God’s message to us. Why not take the test that Jesus offered: “If any man is willing to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from Myself.” Begin with the Gospel of John. Do what it says, and find out if what He says is true.
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