Great Mysteries of the Faith:
How do we know the Bible is true?
Psalm 12:6
I love how the Lord works. As some of you may know, this last week was Camp Meeting for the Church of God in Western Pennsylvania. Since I hold my credentials through the Church of God, Camp Meeting is a staple of my year. There are some things that I need to go there for such as pastor meetings and speaking engagements, but there is so much there that I love that I hate to miss any of it. There are old friends there that you only get to see once a year. There is great food, fellowship, worship, and speakers. It is just an enjoyable experience all around.
I must say, because of Camp Meeting, that I tried to rush my sermon preparation this week. I was anxious to get there for as much time as possible, so I tried really hard to find time to get my sermon done quickly. I tried to work on it Monday, but the thoughts never began to flow. I thought I would get it done on Tuesday morning, but I had no peace on what my topic should be. I decided I would think while I mowed the yard, but to my surprise, my brand new mower decided to explode with flames and smoke coming from under the hood. That made for set back after setback as I tried to get Hetrick’s to come and get the mower and leave me another one so I could finish mowing. It also ruined my attitude for the time being and I could not focus on a topic. I became frustrated because I knew my time at Camp Meeting would be cut even more.
After blowing off some steam at the softball game, I came home and began to search frantically through the Bible. I looked over all the passages I read recently. Still nothing. I then went through every page of my Bible and looked at ever highlighted verse in it. Still no peace about a topic. Then, at about one o’clock as I went to turn out the lights, I found an article laying on the pool table that I had wanted to read and had put it off. It was about the importance of proving that the Bible was true.
It was a good article, but I was still not sure I had a topic – until the next morning. As I was eating my breakfast, the doorbell rang. It was a Jehovah’s Witness. For most people, this would be a hassle, but I tend to enjoy their visits. They always think they are getting to talk to a young kid who could easily be persuaded to follow their ways, and they have no idea that I am a pastor and know all about their organization. This time, however, I did not have time for this – I needed to get my sermon going. To make a long story short, I told this lady I was a pastor, and she suddenly did not want to stay very long. She went to leave, and asked her if she had any information that she wanted to leave with me. She said that she did, and she handed me a book entitled, “What Does the Bible Really Teach.” This made my day because it confirmed instantly in my heart what I was to preach on. I was to preach on the validity of the Scripture because it is of utmost importance. Do we need another little book to explain God’s Word to us or does it stand on its own? Can we really believe the Bible at its every word? This is an extremely important topic, because if we don’t know the answer and can’t back it up, then we can become easily entangled in false religions and doctrines such as this lady was.
As we look at this topic, we must first take a look to the Bible to see what it has to say about itself. What does the Bible proclaim about itself? 2 Timothy 3:16 tells us that, “All Scripture is God breathed.” Basically, it is telling us that the entire Bible, Scripture, is the Word of God. Then, we come to our Scripture for the day. Turn with me or follow along in your sermon notes as we see what Psalm 12:6 has to say about God’s Word.
And the words of the Lord are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times.
Thus, since the Bible is the Word of God, and the words of the Lord are flawless and purified, then, the Bible must be true. End of story, right? I suppose not or else this sermon would be over instead of just starting. Remember when you were back in elementary school? Your teacher would ask you to give a definition for a word. What was the number one rule when giving a definition? You cannot use that same word in the definition. This is similar in the eyes of most non-Christians. You cannot rely on the Bible to prove itself to be true. After all, many people throughout history claimed to be telling the truth and were found out to be false. I think of baseball great Rafael Palmerio who, under oath, swore that he had never taken steroids. He was adamant about this and shook his finger at the Senator who asked the questions as if to say, “How dare you accuse me of this.” Two months later, Palmerio received a suspension from MLB as he tested positive for taking steroids. I can think of a former president who promised America that there was no infidelity in his marriage with his intern, and that was later to be proven false. People do not take people on their word anymore that something is true or not true, and the same is the case with the Bible. We have to search for more than just the Bible claiming to be true. This morning, I wish to present 4 proofs to you so that you can be absolutely convinced that the Bible is the truth and that you can use to lead others, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses who drop by, to believe that the Bible is the truth and it is all we need. Before we go any further though, let’s ask the Lord to bless our time.
Proof #1: Fulfilled Prophesies
People have a fascination with the future. We want to know what things are going to be like. We want to know where we will be in five, ten, fifty years down the road. We want to know what is coming later on today sometimes like what we are going to have for dinner. I am the same way, and for this reason, I like to watch good magicians at their trade. There is one who is televised on A&E every week that I love, in part, because of his great tricks about predicting what people are going to say or write down on a piece of paper. It blows my mind. This morning, I am no magician, but I want to try something. I need three children to come up.
Now, I am going to ask three questions. I am going to write down my answer before you even get to. Then, I will fold mine up and give it to my lovely assistant. Then, I will have you write your answer down. You will then tell the audience what you wrote down, and give your paper to your assistant. Then, at the end of the questions, we will compare answers to see how I did.
Well, that was fun, and if you haven’t figured it out yet, you can talk to me after church. But, the point is, I used a trick to predict the future. Now, the Bible has many predictions about the future, but there is no trick to them. These predictions are called prophesies, and they happen throughout the Old Testament. For example, Daniel the prophet predicted in 538 BC in Daniel 9:24-27 that Christ would come as Israel’s promised Savior. This is not a very bold prediction until we look and see what he is really saying. Verse 25 tells us this. Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler comes, there will be seven ‘sevens’, and sixty-two ‘sevens’.” Now, I am not going to bog you down with math this morning, but I will tell you that every Bible scholar has this number translated as 483. You get this by taking 7 times 7 and adding it to 7 times 62. Now, it is interesting enough that Jerusalem was rebuilt before Jesus came on the scene, and when you check history, this rebuilding was ordered by the Persian emperor of the time. When was this decreed? Exactly 483 years before Christ was born, this proclamation was ordered. That’s amazing, and it blows the doors off of my little trick
In fact, there are many other prophesies like this. In fact, there are hundreds of them. In Genesis 49, we are told that the Messiah would come from the tribe of Judah and it is fulfilled in Luke 3. Isaiah 7 predicts the virgin birth. Psalm 41 tells us that that Jesus would be betrayed by a close associate. I could go on and on. Some of these predictions happened hundreds and even thousands of years before they came true. And, not one of them was ever proven to be wrong. Surely this should help us see the validity of the Bible. After all, who can predict the future with 100% reliability? It has to be an omnipotent and omnipresent God who let’s us know through His Word. He shows us this is the case in 2 Peter 1:20-21. “Above all, you must understand that no prophesy of Scripture came about by the prophets own interpretation. For prophesy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” God spoke it – men just made it known to us. All prophesy is fulfilled because it first came from God, and that helps us to know that all Scripture is from Him and is therefore true.
Proof #2: Historical & Scientific Accuracy
In Hollywood, there is one phrase that seems to be becoming more prevalent when it comes to movies. I am sure that you have heard the words, “Based on a true story.” These movies are great inspiring tales that follow real story lines, but they stray in some areas in order to provide more entertainment. When you go back to check the historical facts, some of the movie can be disproven to be fact.
The other day, I was watching the movie “Groundhog Day”. Over and over again, they talk about Punxsutawney, PA. They tell you they are there. They make the watcher believe they are there, but when you look back at the facts, you can see that the entire movie was shot on location at Woodstock, IL. When you know this fact, it takes away from the credibility, because you have shown that they are not being historically accurate.
The Bible, however, is not based on a true story – it is the truth. Jesus said in John 8:31-32 that, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” You see, in His teaching, we find truth. And, where do we find Jesus’ teaching? In the Scriptures. Once again, we see His Word telling us that it is true, but again we must back it up. The historical accuracy of the Scriptures is in a class by itself. How do we know this? We know it by looking at archaeological records. Dr. Nelson Glueck, who quite possibly may be the greatest modern authority on Israeli archeology had this to say about the subject:
“No archeological discovery has ever controverted a Biblical reference. Scores of archeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or in exact detail historical statements in the Bible. And, by the same token, proper evaluation of Biblical descriptions has often led to amazing discoveries.
But, the Bible does not stop there. Not only is it historically accurate, but it is also scientifically accurate. I want you to think real hard with me for a minute. Who is generally given credit for discovering that the world was round? Christopher Columbus was thought mad in his time for believing it, but he proved to be right. However, he is not the first to tell about a round earth. Somewhere between 700 and 681 BC, the book of Isaiah was written. In this book, he makes the statement that the world is round. In Isaiah 40:22 he states, “He (God) sits enthroned above the circle of the earth.” God had already given Isaiah the scientific knowledge of the earth being round over a thousand years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1482. The Bible is full of these examples in which it tells about facts of science and nature long before they were confirmed experimentally. For example, the hydrological cycle is explained in Ecclesiastes 1:7. The law of increasing entropy is laid out in Psalm 102:25-27. Job 26:7 tells about the gravitational field. I could go on. This is just a sampling of how the Bible has been and will always be scientifically and historically accurate. This is significant because it shows that no real mistake has ever been demonstrated in the Bible. Many have been claimed, but when looked at closely, the scientist and historian have been wrong or there has been a reasonable solution worked out by Bible scholars.
Proof #3: Unique Structure
In the summertime, I used to work at a Christian Camp. One of my favorite times was to sit around the fire and tell stories. Sometimes, we would tell a sentence story. That is where one person tells a sentence to a story, and then the next person adds the next sentence. Pretty soon you have a wild and wacky story that is no where near where you thought it would go. It is also a story with many holes in it, and most often times, it does not make a lot of sense.
When you have a whole bunch of people trying to write a story, it becomes difficult. Did you ever hear the phrase, “Too many cooks will spoil the dinner”? Why is this? It is because they all have their own ideas about what to do. Even though these ideas are very good individually, they may not work out when put together. This is one of the things that makes the Bible so special. The Bible is made up of 66 different books written by 40 or more different authors over a period of 2000 years. This should lead to holes in the story. This should be a “too many cooks” scenario. However, when you read God’s Word, it is clear that it is one book with perfect unity and consistency throughout.
This is an amazing fact especially when you consider that the individual writers, at the time of writing, had no idea that their message was eventually to be incorporated into such a book. And yet, each writing fits perfectly into place and serves its own unique purpose as a component of the whole. Author Henry Morris has this to say. “Anyone who diligently studies the Bible will continually find remarkable structural and mathematical patterns woven throughout its fabric, with an intricacy and symmetry incapable of explanation by chance or conclusion.” So, why is there such consistency? It is because of the words of 2 Timothy 3:16 which states that “All Scripture is God breathed.” Even though there are many people being used, God is the common bond. He is the glue that brings all these pages together, therefore, the Bible must be true. Otherwise, without God’s hand and blessing, the Scripture would be a jumbled mess with no consistency and many blatant contradictions. However, since it is true and from God, it melds into one work that stands above all others.
Proof #4: Unique Effect
Lastly, the Bible has to be true because of the effect it has on its readers. Did you know that it is the all-time best selling book in history – by millions and millions of copies over number two. This is because it appeals to hearts and minds, and to people of all races, nationalities, and social standing. No other book has ever held such universal appeal nor produced such lasting effects.
I ask you this morning – how many of you have had a time in your life when the Bible has helped you in your time of need? How many of you have a Scripture that is near and dear to your heart that God put there for your benefit? How many of you have had your life changed by a passage of Scripture? We all have – otherwise how would we know how to get saved? We know from personal experience that the Bible’s promises are true, its counsel is sound, and its teachings are wise. The Bible explains this aspect of itself this way in Hebrews 4:12. “For the Word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” You see, this book is true because it is alive and active. Its words are able to help people from generation to generation. It is relevant and will be relevant for years to come. No other book can make this claim.
The Bible is very special – mostly because it is completely true. We cannot allow people to undermine its power or might by taking away the fact that it is the Word of God and every word of it is true. We don’t need other books to add on to it. It can stand by itself because of its fulfilled prophesies, historical and scientific accuracy, unique structure and ability to change lives. Deep down, we know it’s true, but it is our job to let others know the same. My prayer is that you will never doubt the Word – but, you will cling to it and pass its message on to everyone you meet. Let’s pray.
