How Then Shall We Recover Our Biblical Mind

HOW THEN SHALL WE RECOVER OUR

BIBLICAL MIND

By

Jerry Falwell

INTRODUCTION

My good friend, Francis Schaeffer wrote a challenging book entitled How Then Shall We Live? which challenged us to ground our daily living in the Word of God. Schaeffer warned America that it was losing its Biblical foundation. What he predicted has come to pass. America has lost its Biblical moorings. Listen to what the Barna Research Group has said:

• 1 out of 4 Americans can correctly identify John 3:16.

• 1 out of 5 Americans can correctly define the Gospel.

• 1 out of 3 Americans read their Bible regularly.

• 1 out of 3 Americans believe in a literal Hell.

• 4 out of 10 Americans cannot name half of the 10 Commandments.

• 4 out of 10 Americans cannot name one of the four Gospels.

• Only 1 out of 10 Americans can identify the Great Commission.

• 4 out of 10 Americans believe that Jesus sinned.

These statistics are so discouraging, that many people want to give up teaching the Bible. But I would like to ask, “Shall we then give up?” If we then give up, we give in to the world, the flesh and the Devil. Christians seem to know much less knowledge about the Bible than in previous generations. The average man on the street knows less about the Bible than ever before. I have taken a page out of Francis Schaeffer’s book to call this sermon How Then Shall We Recover Our Biblical Mind?. Why do we need to recover? Because America has lost something it once had; America has lost its way of thinking Biblically.

Chuck Swindoll spoke at a recent Liberty graduation and said,

“The greatest need in our times is for God’s people to be Biblically literate.” I could not agree more.

AMERICA MUST RE-DISCOVER THE IMPORTANCE OF THE BIBLE

The problem with our churches is that we only give lip service to obeying the Scriptures.

Some pastors only teach Bible content, without applying Biblical principles of life. Some pastors only tell Bible stories without calling for repentance. Some pastors preach about the Bible, without influencing the life of hearers. Some pastors don’t even believe the Bible is the Word of God; I have no idea what they preach.

The Bible has been properly called the Greatest Book in the World. It is, at the same time, both the most read and most loved Book of all time, and it has become the most hated and most ridiculed Book of some.

• Cable Television’s czar, Ted Turner, mocks the Bible and calls Christians losers.

• The 18th century humanist Thomas Paine said that the Bible was more likely “the work of a demon” than the Word of God.

• The agnostic Robert Ingersoll claimed that only the ignorant could believe in the inspiration of this Book.

• Which rings me to the question I want to ask today: Is the Bible true?

Do you have to check your brains at the door to believe that the Bible is God’s Word? Can you be intellectually honest and believe that this Book, cover to cover, is the truth? Are its claims reliable? Can the Bible be trusted?

AMERICA MUST

RE-DISCOVER THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE

THE BIBLE CLAIMS FOR ITSELF DIVINE INSPIRATION

Its writers claim to have written for God. The word “scripture” refers to that which has been written down. That which is written is inspired, i.e., God breathed. The words on the pages of the Bible began with God. “All scripture” means that every word is inspired and that every word is equally inspired. There are no errors, no myths, no fallacies, no fact that can be debunked. There are no contradictions—every word agrees with every other word because they all come from the same source, i.e., the mind of God. That’s an impressive claim, but you would expect no less of a Book that claims to have a supernatural origin.

JESUS ACCEPTED THE BIBLE AS TRUTH.

He referred to the creation as a literal event. He spoke of the first man Adam as an historical figure. He spoke of the miracles of the Bible as fact.

FULFILLED PROPHECY IS EVIDENCE

Each Old and New Testament prophecy is either fulfilled or in the process of fulfillment. Not one prediction by God has ever failed to come to pass.

GOD HAS PRESERVED HIS WORD

God could have sent down the Bible, bound in black leather, with gilded edges, sewn with silk, with every word printed in indelible India ink. He chose instead to give it to us in a way that is so unique that it is, in itself, an outstanding evidence of its supernatural origin:

• 40 persons were used to record these words.

• They wrote over a period of 1500 years.