WHY WE KNOW THE BIBLE IS TRUE
But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them;
And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
Notice 3 things in verse 14,
There is a challenge to continue in what we have learned
Those of us who have been Christians for any length of time know there are temptations to leave what we learned in church, from our parents and from our SS teachers and our pastor
The things we learned came from God and not our teachers
At least, that is what verse 16 tells us. There is no doubt that, since our teachers were all human, they made mistakes. But the good thing is, we can go to the Bible and check it out for ourselves to make sure what we learned is from the Bible. If it is from the Bible, God taught them to us, not men.
The things we learned are profitable
It’s not been a waste of time to learn the Bible. And it will not be a waste of time to continue learning them.
It is very likely that the most aggressive attack that has ever been faced by Christians has been the attack on the Bible.
It makes a lot of sense from the spiritual point of view.
· If the Bible is true, then there is a supernatural devil who hates everything that comes from God
· If the Bible is true, then every other religion in the world is false
· If the Bible is true, then it is the only source of direction to come to know God and His way of salvation
The Bible has liberated the souls of those who have read for themselves and come to accept the message that it brings. And for that reason, those who have longed to keep men in bondage have striven to keep men from the Bible.
The bedrock of the Christian faith rests upon God. But fixed closely to that is the Word of God because everything we know about God comes,
· Not from the opinions of gifted men
· Not from the evolution of theological though
· Not from the process of synods and diets
The Bible we hold in our hands today boldly professes itself to have come to us through the inspiration of God. I hope to impress upon your minds that your Bible is the product of the inspiration of God.
The Bible declares itself to be something else.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God….
The Greek word used in this passage is one that literally means “God breathed.”
It is defined further for us in
2 Peter 1:19-21 KJV
We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:
Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
How do we know the Bible is true?
The Bible is...
I. EVIDENCE OF A GOD WHO IS
A. The phrase "Thus saith the Lord" is found 413 times.
The first of them being
Exodus 4:22
And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn:
And the last being
Malachi 1:4
Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the Lord of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the Lord hath indignation for ever.
B. The phrase "The Word of the Lord" is found 255 times
The first one,
Genesis 15:1
After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.
The last one being
1 Peter 1:25
But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.
The phrase "God said" is found 46 times
The phrase "My Word" is found 14 times
C. These passages assure us that this Bible is the Word of God.
More than merely an ideal; we have a heaven-sent message before us.
· We don’t call it the Word of God because that is how we think of it
· We call it the Word of God because it declares itself to be the words that God has spoken to men
But anybody with little character could have written something and claimed that what he wrote was the Word of God.
· How do we know that the Bible is really the word of God?
· How do we know that these holy men of God were moved by the Holy Ghost?
The Bible is a...
II. DEMONSTRATION OF A GOD WHO HAS
Deuteronomy 18:19-22 KJV
And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.
But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.
And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken?
When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.
A. Things were not so different four thousand years ago than they are today.
The question is a valid one. If God is going to use men to tell us what God has said, how do we know if it is really from God, or just someone saying that God spoke to them?
And, by the way, it happened very often that someone presumed to speak for God when they had really not heard from God.[1]
So, God gave them a test….
We will know if the prophet is really from God if everything he prophecies comes to pass exactly how he described it.
That is why all of the major prophecies of the Old Testament have more than one fulfillment
· One, a near fulfillment, to prove it is from God
· The other, more distant, but more important to God’s eternal plan
It gets confusing, but it is important when we study the Old Testament prophets to
· Understand the near fulfillment – because it proves he is from God and then
· Understand and believe, the more distant fulfillment, some of which have not been fulfilled to this day.
B. The Bible is filled with prophecies that are there to demonstrate and to prove to us that this book is the very Word of God.
According to The Complete Book of Bible Prophecy[2] twenty seven percent of the Bible is prophecy and twenty percent of the books of the Bible are prophetic in nature.
· Of the some 2500 prophecies that are in the Bible,
· at least 2000 of them have already been fulfilled 100 percent accurately.
Many of the prophecies of the Bible contain such detail and were fulfilled so accurately that many of the skeptics in the academic world have just shrugged them off and said they have to have been written after the fact.
Some of those prophecies are:
· The scattering of the Jewish nation
· The regathering of the Jewish nation
· That Judah would be the royal family of Israel
· That Jesus would be born in Bethlehem
· That Bethlehem would experience a tragic loss of her children
· That Jesus would die with transgressors
· That Jesus would be so abused that his bones would become dislocated but
· That Jesus would be killed without having a bone broken
· The Jesus would be buried in a borrowed tomb of a rich man[3]
Isaiah prophesied that a man named Cyrus would release the Jews from captivity more than 100 years before they went into captivity.
Jeremiah prophesied at the beginning of Babylonian captivity that it would last 70 years.
Daniel prophesied that there would be four major Gentile world empires
· Babylon
· Medo-Persia
· Greece and
· Rome
History confirms that there have been those four and only those four world empires.
Rome didn’t fall to a greater nation as had happened in earlier conquests. Rome disintegrated from within, dividing first in two and then fragmenting into nothingness.
· French Napoleon tried to create an empire
· Germany’s Hitler tried too
C. Interestingly, none of the worlds 26 other major religious books try their hand at prophecy.[4]
In Isaiah 41:21-24 KJV God challenges the world…
Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob.
Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen: let them shew 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.
Shew 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.
Behold, ye are of nothing, and your work of nought: an abomination is he that chooseth you.
Here is how you prove something is from God or not; let them show you what will happen in the future. If they can’t do that, they are nothing.
As I said, the Bible contains approximately 2500 prophecies. Of these, 2000 have already been fulfilled. That leaves us with about 500 that have yet to be fulfilled. What about them?
The Bible is a...
III. PROMISE OF A GOD WHO WILL
2 Peter 3:9 KJV
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
That 2000 Bible prophecies have been fulfilled exactly as God has given them means that we may confidently consider the remaining prophecies as promises from God.
There are five hundred of them and I do not mean to go through them all; but I do want to give those that are most appropriate for you and me today.
The Promise of
A. Sins forgiven
John 1:29 KJV
The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
Matthew 1:21 KJV
And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.
This is the main focus of everything that is written in the Bible.
· All of the Mosaic Laws
· All of the Old Testament history
· All of the fulfilled prophecies
All of it was written to bring finally to Jesus Christ, the One who will save us from our sins.
Every sane man knows he is a sinner. He knows he is selfish, and he knows that he, and those like him, will use and abuse every opportunity they may have to be
· Wealthy
· Comfortable and
· Powerful
It’s why the great philosophers wrestled with issues of morality and virtue.
How do we climb above our base inclinations?
It is also why the great leaders of our world have fought for power and control.
How do we harness the power of the masses of people for our purpose?
It is why the great statesmen of our country strove to form “a more perfect union.”
How do we build a government for the people and by the people?
But in every case, they were looking for a way to either:
· Harness the sin nature
· Restrain the sin nature or
· Reform the sin nature
Only God promises to take away the sin nature.
And it is not through
· Education
· Legislation or
· Diligence
but by grace, through faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ.
We do not work our way to forgiveness of sin, we ask our way to that forgiveness.
Listen to this promise,
Romans 10:13 KJV
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
· Not could be
· Not might be
· Not may be
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
What a promise!
“But I have asked Christ to save me and I still sin.”
Hence comes promise number two and, the promise of,
B. Chains broken
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 KJV
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
Between these two promises we have the two most profound doctrines involving salvation:
· Justification – God pronounces us innocent, free from sin
· Sanctification – God undertakes to wash us and break the chains of sin that bind us
Colossians 1:21-22 KJV
And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:
God’s promise is that He will present you to Himself
· Holy
· Unblameable and
· Unreproveable
in His sight.
Finally, there is…
The Promise of
C. Heaven waiting
John 14:1-3 KJV
Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
The day Jesus ascended into heaven, the disciples, stood gazing into the sky, astounded at what had just taken place when the Bible says,
Acts 1:10-11 KJV
…, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;
Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.
And this promise of Jesus’ return to receive us into heaven with Him is our blessed hope,
Titus 2:13 KJV
Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
This Bible is the inspired Word of God. He spoke to men and anointed them with the Holy Spirit to record for you and for me the very Words God wanted you and me to hear from Him.
· It has proven itself to be His word
· It has changed the hearts of men who have believed it and
· It promises the saved an eternal home with Christ in heaven
Conclusion
· We know the Bible is true because it says so.
· We know the Bible is true because it has proven itself so and
· We know the Bible is true because it has demonstrated itself so in the hearts of men
Then said the prophet Jeremiah unto Hananiah the prophet, Hear now, Hananiah; The LORD hath not sent thee; but thou makest this people to trust in a lie.
Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will cast thee from off the face of the earth: this year thou shalt die, because thou hast taught rebellion against the LORD.
So Hananiah the prophet died the same year in the seventh month.
[3] Some people say that this is the Bible proving the Bible and that this is not sound logic. That is not the case. This is the Bible proving itself through the external evidence of history. This is a perfectly sound logical argument.
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