Can We Really Believe The Bible Today? Series

Can We Really Believe the Bible Today?

Rev. Brian Bill

May 11-12, 2019

Man on Street Interview

Do we have any full-time missionaries here today? Could you raise your hand?

Actually, every Christ-follower is called to live on mission as a missionary. If a missionary is one who is sent to cross a culture, often learning a new language in order to share the gospel with those far from Christ, then each of us is a missionary.

It’s difficult to share our faith with those who think the Bible is a fable, isn’t it? Our society has certainly become more secular, and the spiritual landscape is becoming unrecognizable.

In a recent editorial (4/29/19) in USA Today, Oliver Thomas writes, “Churches will continue hemorrhaging members until we face the truth. Being a faithful Christian does not mean accepting everything the Bible teaches.” A couple paragraphs later, he makes fun of Christians who say, “The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.”

BTW, Oliver Thomas is a retired Baptist minister.

In an interview with Nicholas Kristof published in the New York Times Easter weekend, Serene Jones, president of Union Theological Seminary, a seminary founded on the “infallible” Word of God, made these startling statements (the link is on Sermon Extras): “I find the virgin birth a bizarre claim…” Asked what happens when people die, Jones responded, “I don’t know! There may be something; there may be nothing. My faith is not tied to some divine promise about the afterlife…God is beyond our knowing…I don’t worship an all-powerful, all-controlling omnipotent being.”

Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist seminary, offered this insight on “The Briefing” (the link is posted on Sermon Extras): “Jones rejects the entire edifice of orthodox, biblical Christianity…This is not Christianity. This is a new religion, a new god, formed in an image intended not to offend modern secular sensibilities…indeed, she has denied everything that makes the gospel good news…What we see here is a hope to replace biblical Christianity with a new religion without anyone noticing.”

I fear the last verse in the Book of Judges sums up the shift in our society, as promulgated by secular and even spiritual leaders. Listen to Judges 21:25: “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

As we continue in our “Glad You Asked” series, our question this weekend is, “Can we really believe the Bible today?” Here’s the deal. If you believe the Bible is just made up by a bunch of people, you can sit in judgment of it. On the other hand, if the Bible comes from God, we must bow in submission to it.

Write this down: What you believe about the Bible will determine your beliefs and your behavior. If you don’t believe the Bible, you will make up your own beliefs and behave however you like! If you believe the Bible to be the inspired, inerrant, infallible and authoritative Word of God, then your beliefs and your behavior will reflect that.

We’re a church that stands on the Bible as the Word of God. Listen to the props the Apostle Paul gave to a church in 1 Thessalonians 2:13: “And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.” When we accept the Word as God’s Word, it goes to work in us.

Have you ever wondered why Bible-believing Christians declare God as the Creator, that all of us are sinners, that marriage is between one man and one woman, that Jesus is the only way to Heaven, that He was crucified, raised from the dead, ascended to Heaven and is coming again? How do we know Heaven and Hell are real, that demons and angels exist and life begins at conception? Because that’s what the Bible teaches.

Speaking of life matters, that’s why thousands of people gathered in Times Square last Saturday to proclaim the wonder of what God is doing in the womb as 4D ultrasounds were shown in the state that recently legalized abortion up until birth. Check out this full-page ad that appeared in the New York Times the next day. In bold letters at the top were these words: “SEE FOR YOURSELF.” At the bottom was a picture of a baby from a 4D ultrasound and this was the text: “This was the image some didn’t want you to see. Ten fingers. Ten toes. Chubby cheeks. Button nose. Moving. Wiggling. Kicking. Squirming. Unquestionably Alive!”

In other news this week, I’m glad Georgia just passed the fetal heartbeat bill. When Governor Brian Kemp signed the bill amidst threats of lost business in the state, he declared, “Our job is to do what’s right, not what is easy.” In contrast to this, on Monday night, Christine Quinn, who ran for mayor in New York, in an interview on CNN, made this statement: “When a woman is pregnant, that is not a human being inside of her.”