Can I Trust The Bible? Series

March 21, 2004 Luke 1:1- 4; 2 Peter 1:16 – 2:3

“Can I trust the Bible?”

NOTE: unless otherwise indicated, all quotes are from the “Tough Questions” series by Judson Poling and Garry Poole published by Zondervan

INTRODUCTION

How many of you have had a Mormon come to your door? If your experience was like mine, then when they came, they offered you a copy of the Book of Mormon. They told you that the Book of Mormon is a further revelation of the truth about God. When you asked about the credentials of this book looking for reasons why you should believe it, they said: “’If you pray about it and ask the Holy Spirit to tell you if this book is from God, He will show you personally. Read it and find out.’ Archaeological research [is] unnecessary, historical inquiry [is] not needed – just a direct word from God and you’d know.”

The fact is that every major religion of the world has their own writings that they consider to be sacred, holy and worthy of trust. Muslims believe that the Quran was “dictated by God to the prophet Mohammed early in the seventh century A.D.” Hindus hold to the teachings of the Baghavad Gita. We Christians revere the Bible, believe its words are straight from God and live our lives according to the truths found there – or at least we’re supposed to.

“Take a biblical Christian, a Muslim, and a Mormon and lock them in a room, and they would all try to get the others to accept their book as the true revelation of God’s Word. ... Each religion’s representative telling you to accept theirs, with no further proof than ‘You’ll know once you read it.’ How would you know which books, if any, were the truthful ones?”

If we were to use popular opinion as our judge of truth, the question would still not be settled. In shear volume, there are more Bibles in the world than any other book. It has been translated into more languages than any other book, read by more people than any other book, and it is sold by more stores than any other book. So the Bible wins in popularity as a book. But, there are more Muslims, followers of the Quran than there are Christians who are followers of the Bible. So which is more popular? Doesn’t really matter when it comes to truth because as someone has said, “If 50 million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.” – Anatole France

And that’s exactly what some people would call this quest for a message from God. They would call it a foolish thing because from their perspective, there is no God to deliver a message.

There’s a story of a guy on an airplane who was an atheist. He was sitting next to a little girl who was traveling alone, and the little girl brought out a Bible to read during the trip. The man struck up a conversation with the little girl, and after a while, he asked her about her Bible. “Do you like reading that Bible?” “Yes, I do,” she replied. “How do you know it’s true?” “Because it’s God’s Word.” “Yeah, but take Jonah and the Whale. Do you really believe that?” “Yes, I do.” “How can you explain how God would make a whale swallow a man like that?” “I don’t know. I guess I’ll ask Jonah when I get to heaven.” “What if Jonah’s not in heaven?” “Then you can ask him.”

In that little story, we have the central issue of what’s at stake here. We’re not just talking about which cookbook is the best, with the only consequence of our choice being a bad meal. We’re talking about eternal things here – the existence of heaven and hell and what it takes to get you to heaven and keep you out of hell. We have to come to a conclusion about whether or not we believe that God has spoken and where we believe that message is located. – p. 9-10

I believe that God has spoken and that His words are recorded in the Bible and the Bible alone. This morning, I want to give you four reasons that you can know that you are safe to put your trust in the Bible both for this life and for the next.

You can believe the Bible because:

1. The Bible is an accurate transmission of God’s words.

 From God to man - inspiration

If I’m going to put my trust in the Bible, I need to know a little bit about where it came from and how it got to me. Did it just drop down from heaven right into the shelf at my local Wal-mart written by the hand of God Himself or at least by the hand of an angel? Part of me wishes that I could say that it did, but it did not. The fact is that the authorship of the Bible was a partnership between God and humans.