How Do I Know The Bible Is True? Series

Each year in the United States more than 50,000 books are published. It only takes a few moments of your time in Barnes and Noble to discover that there are books published on a variety of subjects, in fact just about every imaginable subject. There are many people who trust the Bible and say that it is different from any book that has ever been published. Those of us included in that group believe that the Bible was authored by God and is the only book that shows us how to know Him, how to live, and how to receive eternal life. Of course there are those who do not hold this view. They think the Bible is flawed and unreliable, and obviously not written by God. Many hold the view that the Bible is in the same class as the Greek stories about the gods on Mount Olympus or the writings of Confucius. To them the Bible is just another religious book. The greatest objection is offered when people say that the Bible is a book that we can trust with our life and destiny. How can a book written more than 2,000 years ago possibly be relevant to us today? In this message I have accepted the challenge to present you with overwhelming evidence that the Bible is true. The truth is, to reject the Bible is to close your eyes to an overwhelming amount of evidence in its favor. And more important, it is to ignore the reality of mankind’s own spiritual need and the salvation offered in the Bible’s message. In this limited amount of time I would like us to look at three areas: 1) What critics say about the Bible 2) What the historical evidence says and 3) What’s God’s Word has to say about itself.

I. The views of the critics in regard to the Bible.

A. The Bible is scientifically unreliable.

1. Since the Bible is full of scientific errors it can not be trusted in spiritual matters either.

2. Because of naturalistic assumptions many scientists have great difficulty accepting the miracles in the Bible.

3. The problem here is that many people have a limited view of an unlimited God.

B. The Bible is historically inaccurate.

1. People, who believe in the Bible, believe it has come from God error free.

2. When something in archaeology or ancient records seem to contradict the Bible the conclusion is immediately reached that the Bible is wrong.

3. Unless every Biblical name is authenticated through research and every fact verified the assumption is that the Bible is in error.

C. The Bible is outdated.

1. Not too many books are still in print that was finished more than 2,000 years ago.

2. That very mark of the Bible’s greatness is interpreted by some as a point of weakness.

3. Modern thinkers who have developed philosophies and theories about life can see no possible way that anything written so many centuries ago can be relevant to us today.

D. The Bible is the work of man.

1. There are those who believe that the Bible is the work of man’s fertile imagination and ancient mythological traditions.

2. The Bible by many is considered as a work of ancient mythology.

3. The Bible is just another collection of worthless religious writings.

II. What does the historical evidence say about the Bible?

A. The fact we want to look at first is the uniqueness of the Bible.

1. The Bible features 66 books written by 40 different authors representing about every walk of life.

2. The Bible was written over 1,600 years on three different continents.

3. The Bible was written in three languages: Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic.

4. A gap of 400 years separated the writing of the Old and New Testaments.

5. The Bible addresses man’s deepest questions, about the purpose of life, death and eternity.

6. The Bible has been proven to be archaeologically accurate time and time again.

7. All 318 prophecies in regard to the Messiah were fulfilled by Jesus.

a. The odds of any one person fulfilling just eight of the prophesies is one in one hundred billion.

b. The odds of any one person to fulfill forty eight of these prophesies would be one chance in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion , trillion, trillion times.

8. The Bible is most definitely a most unique book.

B. The Historical accuracy of the Bible.

1. The Bible claims to present an accurate record of the real history of man.

2. The serious challenges to the accuracy of the Bible is being answered by the work of archaeologists.

3. The Old Testament mentions a group of people called the Hittites, scholars doubted their existence until 1906 when the Hittite capital was discovered about 90 miles east of Ankara, the capital of Turkey.