Introduction
a. Last week was the second step in a grand adventure, as we looked at some of the Big Questions thinking people always ask.
i. Where did we come from? Who are we? Why are we here? How should we live? Where are we going?
ii. 1st week - Is it okay to question God? To ask questions like, “Do you exist?” “Why do you do what you do?”
(1) God - Psalm 34:8 - Taste and see that the LORD is good . . .
iii. Last week, How can I know that there’s a God?
(1) Discovered that He is or isn’t cannot be proven.
b. This week - look at a book that claims to be the revealed Word of God to humanity.
i. Psalm 119:160 - The sum of Thy word is truth . . .
ii. John 17:17 - . . . Your Word is truth.
iii. Again, can’t prove or disprove - but there is evidence.
c. Many today don’t believe that the Bible is trustworthy because they have been told that much of the Bible is:
i. Scientifically impossible
ii. Historically unreliable
iii. Culturally regressive
iv. Philosophically unattractive
v. Logically flawed.
d. Are going to look at the evidence, then going to look at another reason many people do not want to believe that the Bible is God breathed - the word of God.
2. The five reasons.
a. The Bible is full of the scientifically inaccurate or impossible events
i. Actually, the Bible was remarkably accurate for its time.
(1) At a time when most of the world believed the world was flat, Isaiah wrote of God sitting on the circle of the earth. Isaiah 40:22
(2) When the ancients believed the earth was held up by Atlas, or rested on the backs of elephants or on pillars, Moses wrote in the book of Job - “He stretches out the north over the empty place, and hangs the earth upon nothing.” Job 26:7
(3) When the black plague was killing one-quarter of Europe’s population in the 14th Century, it was the church that led out in defeating the disease. Reading the instructions given by God to Moses in Leviticus 13:45 concerning people with infectious diseases, they developed the theory of quarantine and isolation that helped to end the plague.
ii. One thing that seriously troubles many who are skeptical of the Bible is the prophecies found there.
(1) Daniel 2 - the image
(2) Name of king of Persia, Cyrus, who would free the slaves. (Isaiah 44:28)
(3) Fall of Tyre in Ezekial 26:1-6 (Babylon, after 13 years of siege under Nebuchadnezzar completely destroyed the mainland city. But inhabitants had escaped to an island offshore and rebuilt the city. 250 years later, Alexander the Great came, used the wood rock and stubble from the destroyed city, built a causeway, marched on the rubble onto the island and destroyed it and scraped it bare, which is how it remains today.)
(4) Isaiah 13:20 - Babylon to be destroyed and never rebuilt.
(5) Exact year Jesus born and crucified.
b. The Bible is historically inaccurate;
i. The Bible is not primarily a history book, but it contains very good history.
ii. For over a hundred years, historians claimed that Daniel’s story of King Belshazzar was a fake - there was no record of him. Last king of Babylon was Nabonidus. But then tablets surfaced that showed that he went off to desert oasis and left his nephew in command as regent - Belshazzar
iii. Linguists ridiculed the idea that Moses could have written the first six books of the Bible - Penteteuch and Job - because writing was not developed enough in that area - then the Tel Elarmona tablets were discovered in northern Egypt that contained written material every bit as complex.
iv. Until the late 1800s, the Bible record of the Hittites was ridiculed - there was no record of such a nation ever existing in the record - until whole libraries of clay tablets from the Hittite nation were discovered.
v. One unique aspect of Bible history is the detail rarely found in ancient history.
c. Third objection to the Bible is that it is culturally regressive.
i. Nothing is further from the truth.
ii. In an age where women were chattel, the Bible urged that they be protected and given rights.
(1) Granted from today’s standards, they were far from ideal.
(2) But, in their day they were radical.
iii. In an age where slaves had no rights, the Bible writers urged that they be treated with dignity found nowhere else.
iv. God had to deal with people where they were, in their culture, and he worked constantly to bring them away from the barbarism of their time.
d. The fourth objection is that the Bible is philosophically unattractive.
i. That is the most amazing objection of all.
ii. In an age where people want to place blame on everyone but themselves for their failures, the Bible urges personal responsibility.
iii. In an age where our society is being absolutely destroyed by an anything goes permissiveness, the Bible teaches personal and societal accountability.
iv. In an age where lifestyle related diseases are ravaging whole continents, the Bible urges restraint and purity and moderation.
v. In an age when our whole economic system is collapsing because of dishonesty, unfettered consumerism and cultural hedonism, the Bible teaches good stewardship of our land, our time, our energy, our resources, our minds and bodies and our relationships.
vi. The so called Protestant work ethic is one of the things that made America great! In an age when more and more of the population demands entitlement, the Bible teaches us to contribute to society.
vii. In an age where teachers cannot teach, where people are afraid to go out on the streets at night, and where the police are increasingly under siege, the Bible urges us to honor the leaders of our country and to be obedient to its laws.
viii. Because, unlike most books, Bible makes moral demands on its readers. It claims to be the truth about morality - and many don’t want anyone telling them what to do or not do. But, when the guidance of the Bible is ignored, there is always a price.
ix. There are some things that are difficult in the Bible, but for the most part, philosophically, the philosophical underpinnings of the Bible sound more attractive every day that passes.
e. Finally, there is the objection that the Bible is logically flawed.
i. Kind of depends on where you are standing.
ii. I don’t understand the logic that says that everything in the universe appeared, in a billionth of a second from nothing - when everything else in the universe comes from something.
iii. I don’t understand the logic that says that the things that are spring from no intelligent design, but just are.
iv. I don’t understand a logic that wants to contend that we came from nothing, are going nowhere, have no purpose in our existence.
v. Compare that with the picture of a God who created the universe just from the sheer pleasure of creating it; who created humans because he enjoyed companionship; who refrained from instantly anhilating them when they turned their backs on him; who graciously offered to suffer the consequences of their rebellion so that they did not have to, who pursued them us as a lover our whole lives because he wants to restore the relationship with us; who promised to welcome us back into that relationship and to forgive us because of what he did not what we have to do, and who promises to restore this world to the perfection it once enjoyed and to give me the chance to enjoy it for an eternity, and I will choose that logic any day of the week.
vi. Can you honestly say that it is logical not to?
3. What does the Bible offer us.
a. Psalm 119:105 - Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
i. In uncertain times, God says that the Bible can be the light for our journey
(1) Flashlight
(a) Reveals the path, it is not the path.
(2) GPS
ii. Have to turn the light on if it is going to do you any good.
(1) Read it.
iii. Shine it on the path
(1) Apply it to your life.
b. John 8:32 - you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.
i. God’s greatest desire for us is freedom. It is why Jesus died on the cross!
ii. Why he works so hard to protect us from the things that will enslave us.
iii. Purpose of the 10 Commandments and the other civil and health laws of the Bible.
iv. Corral to keep us away from the green grass vs. LaBray Tar Pits
v. Jesus - John 10:10 - The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that you may have life, and have it more abundantly!
vi. It is not the Bible that enslaves people to alcohol or drugs.
vii. It is not the Bible that enslaves people to pornography and prostitution.
viii. It is not the Bible that allows or encourages broken marriages and child abuse and gang banging and poverty and war.
ix. There are people who point to lifestyle choices and say, it is my right to do this or that. I can do it if I want to.
(1) And, they are right, but that also means that they have to accept the consequences when what they believed was gold turns out to be mica - fools gold.
x. The greatest freedom which God in the Bible offers us is total absolute freedom from guilt and fear.
(1) Past - 1 John 1:9 - “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all of our unrighteousness.”
(2) Present - 1 John 4:16-19 - So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. In this is love perfected with us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because he first loved us.
(a) Every other religious system and book in the world is all about what we must do to pursue and please and win the acceptance and approval of God. The Bible is the only one about what God has done for us, is doing for us, and can’t wait to do for us.
(b) Fear in the present
(i) People afraid of dying
(c) Fear of the future
(3) Future - Revelation 21:1-4 - Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away."
(4) Talk about freedom!
4. So, does it really work?
a. When the American army stormed across Okinawa at the end of World War II, soldiers found villages of unbelievable poverty, ignorance, and filth. But Shimmabuke, a small obscure community, was different. Homes and streets were clean, the villagers poised and cultured, enjoying a high level of health, happiness, intelligence and prosperity.
Why was Shimmabuke different? Thirty years previously an American missionary on his way to Japan had stopped there. Before he moved on he made two converts, left a Bible, and passed on. From that day the people of Shimmabuke had seen no other missionary, had no other visit with any Christian person or group. But in those 30 years the inhabitants had made the Bible come alive. The two converts had taught the villagers its truth until every one became a Christian.
Then came the American army. Clarence Hall, a war correspondent wrote the following...
"I strolled through Shimmabuke one day with a tough old Army sergeant. As we walked he turned to me and whispered hoarsely. "I can’t figure it, fellow--this kind of people coming out of only a Bible and a couple of old guys who wanted to live like Jesus!" Then he added what was to me an infinitely penetrating observation: "Maybe we’ve been using the wrong kind of weapons to make the world over!"
b. That’s why I trust the Bible!
