However it’s not surprising that the number is so low. It’s very hard to prove and most of us have just believed that it is God’s Word because we were told that it is. That’s very hard for a seeker or unbeliever to blindly accept. If I point a person to the Bible and it’s just a book of man made stories to them, it will not have much impact. And to tell them it is the word of God without evidence when there are numerous other religious holy books out there, will get you the label narrow minded.
So while I can’t prove to you that the Bible is the word of God outside of what the Bible says about itself, what I can do is show you why the Bible is valid and is by far the most substantiated ancient writing in history. This is called I. Internal Validity. For instance there are over 10,000 OT manuscripts that have been found and over 5700 Greek New Testament manuscripts, and when all of them are compared they are in 99.9 percent agreement.
This tells us that the earliest manuscripts have been very precisely copied throughout the ages. These manuscripts are as old as 1400 BC for the Old Testament, and no manuscripts for the New Testament have come from any later than 250 AD. Most of them come from before 150 AD meaning they were all written within one generation of Jesus life on earth.
When you think about that, 66 different books by over 40 authors over hundreds of years, copied over 15,000 times coming to over 99% agreement. That in itself is a miracle. The next closest is Homer’s Iliad which has about 670 manuscripts that come to about 95% agreement. So by sheer number, date and accuracy of these biblical manuscripts, we can say with certainty that they are genuine and have not been altered over all the time they have existed. They are the writings of these ancient people.
But that doesn’t really answer our question. So it’s accurate, but what is it? Is it the inspired word of God? Considering how many authors wrote it over so many years, and that they all come to agreement and never contradict each other, that is pretty good evidence itself. I think I heard this from Lee Strobel, that the chances of that happening are about the same as if a tornado ripped through a junkyard and out came a functioning 747 airliner.
Let’s look at what the Bible says about itself? Starting with 2 Peter 1:20-21 “First of all, you should know this; no prophecy of Scripture comes from one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the will of man; instead men spoke from God as they were moved by the Holy Spirit”.
OK it’s fine for super Christian Peter to say that, but is it true. Think about it for a minute. If we look at most of the prophecy books in the Old Testament, which are the primary Scriptures Peter is talking about, we see that very few if any of the prophets chose that profession, and they had some pretty unpopular things to say.
If I was going to be a prophet just to be popular or get a following, I would probably make up more things people wanted to hear. Biblical prophets were never popular with the majority. In fact most were likely martyred. Again with the New Testament, those including Jesus who spoke about Christian doctrines and prophecies were heavily persecuted and killed; again if you were doing it to be popular you would have a more popular message.
Interestingly, none of the other major religious books that claim to be Scripture have much if any prophecy in them. The Old Testament has about 333 prophecies about the Messiah, all the ones about his first coming were fulfilled exactly. Overall we can see that the Bible has about 2000 prophecies that have been fulfilled many with stunning detail, often spoken or written hundreds of years before the event happened. So the II. Accuracy of prophecy may be the greatest evidence of the inspired nature of the Bible.
Let me demonstrate: What if I were to give you the following predictions:
1. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Iran) will destroy all but the island portion of New York City.
2. Many nations will fight against New York City.
3. The debris from the buildings in New York City will be thrown in the water to access Long Island.
4. New York City will be made bare and flat like the top of a rock.
5. Fishermen will spread their nets over the heap that was once New York City.
6. New York City will never be re-built.
7. New York City's glory will never be restored.
8. I will be laughed at and mocked, and disregarded as a lunatic.
I'm sure the last one is about the only one I would get right. What is amazing is that the prophet Ezekiel made these same predictions (except for the last one), with Nebuchadnezzar replacing Ahmadinejad, and Tyre replacing New York City/Long Island - his prophecy was fulfilled to the last detail!
There’s actually a fascinating prophecy being fulfilled in the US from Isaiah 9 and Jeremiah. It is a parallel prophecy that has already been fulfilled in Israel, and seems to be taking place in the other country that consecrated itself to God when it formed, the United States. This comes from a book called the Harbinger written by a messianic Jew, and it is about a nation that has become apostate primarily through tolerance of things not approved of by God, and when the enemy comes against it, breaching its wall as in 9/11, rather than turning back to God, they pridefully say we will rebuild stronger than ever.
In Isaiah 9:9-10 it says “And the people of Israel and Samaria who spoke with such pride and arrogance, will soon know it (that is, God’s judgement and anger). They said we will replace the broken bricks of our ruins with hewn (or finished) stone, and replant the fallen sycamore-fig tree, with cedars or evergreens”.
Now two leaders spoke for the nation in the days after 9/11 and both used this scripture as an encouragement not realizing because of the biblical illiteracy of the times, that they were actually pronouncing judgment on their own nation.
As with Israel, the enemy came and breached the hedge of protection and then withdrew, before coming back to completely destroy the nation later. After 9/11 in the US the people were flocking to churches asking where was God, why has he allowed this? Of course nobody said, “Uh, well we drove him out of our schools, out of our government, our media, our culture, our public square, out of our national life, where should he be?”
So the Assyrians who were terrorists came to Israel and in 9/11 the same family of people came and breached the walls of the US. So like Israel, the US responds with arrogance quoting Isaiah’s words and saying that they will rebuild stronger, rather than turning back to God for his blessing and protection. You see the US was consecrated to God on the day of its official founding in the then capital of New York, in fact on Wall street, in a little church. The first thing the leaders did was go to this little church and pray for God to lead the country.
That little stone church which was kitty corner to the twin towers was the only building in the area that received no damage. And there was a single tree in the area that stood on that property, and it was a sycamore tree. It was destroyed in the blast and the roots actually sit as a bronze covered memorial of judgment. Then someone donated a tree to replace it and that tree was an evergreen tree, exactly like what Israel said it would do.
Now what about the fallen bricks and rebuilding with hewn stone? Well not long after the collapse of the towers, people went into the mountains and cut out the hewn stone, a several ton piece of stone, and with great ceremony placed it on the site of 9/11 where the towers were. Exactly like the prophecy. These things were all done to encourage, yet they were actually condemning in the Bible. But the American people not knowing the Bible anymore, were ignorant.
So the Americans didn’t turn to God but arrogantly went about rebuilding stronger than ever, taking matters into their own hands spending trillions on a war against terrorism. This eventually led to a second shaking of the country in the way of economic collapse. As God’s nations continue to walk away from God with each judgment, progressive judgments always come. God will continue his discipline until people come back to him.
Isaiah 9:10 is a vow of defiance and then in Isaiah 9:11 (ironically) a second shaking is prophesied, that the Lord shall set up the adversaries of Rezin (the Assyrians) against them and spur his enemies on. …So they replant the tree and set up the stone as signs of defiance against God with out even knowing it.
The problem was never national security it was and is a spiritual problem. Do they really think they can stop all hijacking and people strapping bombs to themselves? Of course not, only God can protect any of us from that. So God sends a second hit to the very fabric of American society, their economic dominance which was represented by the twin towers.
Exactly 6 days after 9/11 the federal reserve decided to slash interest rates (creating free money) and this along with the military spending was the trigger that would bring financial collapse to the nation. Interestingly the New York stock exchange began with a document called the Buttonwood agreement because it was signed under a Buttonwood tree, another name for a sycamore tree, on Wall Street.
Jeremiah prophesied that what the Lord has built up he will break down - the towers and the economy. And what I have planted I will uproot, the sycamore tree, the very symbol of the beginning of Wall Street and the stock exchange. There’s so much more fascinating detail in the book about all of this.
But finally there is the mystery of the Shemitah, which has to do with God working 6 days and then having the 7th day of rest or Sabbath. There was also a tradition of working the land for 6 years and in the 7th year letting it rest. This was a sign of trusting God to provide. In the seventh year all lenders were also to forgive or release people from their debt and all land became public.
After 6 days of the stock market being closed because of 9/11, on the seventh day it opened to the largest crash up until that time. What’s interesting is that 7 years to the day after that, the New York Stock exchange had an even larger crash, and much of the American debt had to be released. God did it for them. As they commemorated 9/11, without turning to God, they experienced the second wave of this judgment. This 7 years represents a nations financial and economic labor realms.
But it was on the Sept. 29th 2008 after a bail out bill was defeated, that an even bigger crash happened. This happened on the Hebrew 29th day of Elul, which is the last day of the 7 year Shemitah when credit and debt are to be nullified. On that day in 2008 7% of the stock market was wiped away totalling 777 points on the final day of the 7th year.
No humans could have orchestrated all of these events and the timings to fit with Scripture, so it must be God. And still today the leaders of the nation are saying we will rebuild, and have not turned to God. Human ingenuity will not solve the deeper problems of any society, only turning back to God and His word.
Of course there’s always hope through repentance, but if there is no repentance, and this prophecy continues in the same way, we can expect an even bigger event in the US in 2015, and of course what happens there has ripple effects through the global economy. And if you remember in the book of Revelation, one of the roles of the antichrist is to bring peace and economic security to the world. But he also requires everyone to have the mark of the beast in order to conduct business, buying and selling.
Anyway the chances of these prophecies all being fulfilled in such detail are practically nothing. In other words it’s humanly impossible. So we have prophecy from Scripture to give the best evidence of the inspired nature of the Bible. This should give us confidence in the NT prophecies that haven’t been fulfilled yet.
Jesus in the New Testament validated these Old Testament Scriptures himself by quoting from all three sections of the OT, The Law, the Prophets, and the History books. He even validated in principle, the coming New Testament in John 16:12-15….
I think another reason to believe that the Bible is inspired by God is III. Its Supernatural survival. Though many have wanted to destroy or eliminate the Bible, they have been very unsuccessful. Somehow God has preserved these writings accurately for thousands of years. And today the Bible is still the best selling book of all time by far.
Perhaps the most convincing argument that the Bible is the word of God again comes from within the Bible. That it is living and active and IV. People are Changed by It, as we read in Hebrews 4:12. What does that mean? I believe this is a double reference to both Jesus and the Bible. Everyone one of us was saved by the word of God. Did you know that? Yes we are saved by Jesus, but without the written word of God none of us would have known about Him. It is by hearing the word of God that we come to know the saving one and what we must do to receive Him and have a relationship with him.
Even after we’re saved, the Bible continues to change us as we come to a deeper understanding of it. I think you could say that the degree of Christ likeness in a Christian is usually directly related to the commitment they have to Scripture.
Now does any of this prove that the Bible is the exclusive word of God? Not to those who don’t believe. My journey maybe was somewhat unique in that I had to believe before I could understand and see the Bible as the word of God. I don’t think there are many truly born again Christians that would doubt the Bible as the infallible complete word of God. There are however many professing Christians as I mentioned earlier who doubt the complete inspiration and authenticity of the Bible, probably because they are not born again in the Spirit.
The Bible actually confirms this. So the last reason I will give you today that this is indeed the word of God, is because V. Jesus and the Holy Spirit say so. 1 Cor 1:18 says, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God”. Then it continues in the second chapter starting in verse 7, “But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory… these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person which is in him. So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.
And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned”.
I think the spirit of God can give some understanding before a person is saved, but for me I had to believe before the Spirit would open my eyes to the truth, and since then there has never been a doubt in my mind that the Bible is the true inspired word of God.
And the big reason is because it speaks to me like no other thing ever has. This book is how I hear God speak. The Spirit will give me insights when I’m not reading the Bible, but they all come from or completely correspond with the Bible in the end.
Again like last week, we see the importance of the Holy Spirit. John in his first letter chapter 4 says that we must test the spirits because there are false prophets.
“By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every one that does not confess this is not from God… We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us (in other words the Bible), whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error”.
Jesus himself closes the Bible with these words in Revelation 22:6, “These words are trustworthy and true. And the Lord, the God of the Spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place”. If we believe in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, we logically have to believe what He says.
Then he says a few verses later that if anyone adds to or takes away from the prophecies of this book they will receive the judgments in those prophecies. Prophecy is the primary authenticator of the Bible. Yet it is also one of the most neglected parts of the Bible. So as you go out today, ask yourself how much prophecy have you studied in the Bible not just read but studied even just with a good study bible? And I encourage you to come up with a concise maybe three point argument for why the Bible is the word of God, for yourself, and for others who don’t know God yet.
