Why the Bible is True
Do you know what your Youth (Church Kids) believe?
Evangelical Fundamental Born-again Youth
Eighty percent (80%) of kids involved in church agree that religious beliefs are important to them, and
Sixty-one percent (61%) say the Bible is accurate. (39%) do not believe that the Bible is True!
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But do all religions pray to the same god?
An alarming sixty-three percent (63%) of our kids think so, and seventy percent (70%) of them say there is no absolute moral truth!
So how do they determine what’s right or wrong?
Seventy-two percent (72%) say they can tell when something is right by whether or not it “works” in their lives.
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And do our kids believe Jesus rose from the grave? Do they think the devil and the Holy Spirit are real?
Fifty-one percent (51%) of our kids don’t believe in the resurrection of Christ, sixty-five percent (65%) don’t think the devil is real, and
Sixty-eight percent (68%) don’t believe the Holy Spirit is a living entity!
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Stats from Josh McDowel "Beyond Beliefs to Convictions"
This is a crisis on so many levels…
Not being convinced of what the Bible says.
Being more influenced by the culture than Biblical Christianity.
It is a crisis in the nature of truth itself.
Why the Bible is True… Let me explain what I mean as “true.”
61% of Churched Youth believe the Bible is true… BUT 81% believe that “all truth is relative to the individual.”
Truth is NOT individually determined; people don’t make up “their” truth.
Question: Do you say the Bible is true because you believe it or do you believe it because it’s TRUE?
Objective:
Demonstrate that the Bible is TRUE apart from what anyone “believes” about it. I want to convince you tonight to believe the Bible because it is TRUE!
Why is the Bible True? Three points… The Bible is…
I. REAL- authentic (manuscripts) [what it is]
II. RELIABLE- accurate (predictive prophecy, archaeology, inerrant) [what it says]
III. RELEVANT- applies meaningfully to life [what it means]
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I. REAL- authentic (manuscripts) [what it is]
Quote: “The Bible has been translated so many times, passed down to us over all these years, its full of so many mistakes, it just can not be trusted.”
How do we know that the Bible we have today is what was originally spoken by God to the Prophets and Apostles?
A. Manuscripts Evidence- pieces of paper that copies of the Bible where written on.
Has the Bible been handed down to us accurately?
1. Old Testament
a. We have very few copies of OT manuscripts because of the way Jewish scribes copied and viewed the texts. They took great care in copying them and discarded old copies.
b. The oldest copy of the OT we had dated 900 A.D.
c. But in 1947 the Dead Sea Scrolls where found in Qumran by the Dead Sea. The scrolls where 1000 years older than any of our existing manuscripts.
This provided scholars with a real test about whether the OT was passed down to us accurately.
After comparing the entire Isaiah manuscript from Qumran with the present Hebrew text of Isaiah, Old Testament scholar Gleason L. Archer concluded that the Dead Sea Scroll “proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The 5 percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling.” 1
Geza Vermes states: “The Qumran Biblical documents cover the whole Hebrew Bible with the exception of the book of Esther, and are about one thousand years older than the most ancient codices previously extant. With this newly discovered material at their disposal, experts concerned with the study of the text and transmission of the scriptures are now able to achieve far greater accuracy in their deductions and can trace the process by which the text of the Bible obtained its final shape. Moreover, they are in position to prove that it has remained virtually unchanged for the last two thousand years.” 2
2. New Testament
a. We have about 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the NT today and about 19,000 other ancient translations.
We can compare the manuscripts and know exactly what the NT writers said.
b. ILLUSTRATION
Remember; this is answering the question of how we know that the Bible we have today says exactly what God said to the Prophets and Apostles.
Sir Frederic Kenyon, director of the British Museum: The text of the Bible is certain; especially in the case with the New Testament. The number of manuscripts of the New Testament, of early translations from it, and of quotations from it in the oldest writers of the church, is so large that it is practically certain that the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved in some one or the other of these ancient authorities. This can be said of no other ancient book. 3
II. RELIABLE- accurate (predictive prophecy, archaeology, inerrant) [what it says]
Nelson Glueck, a famous Jewish archaeologist, observed, “It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference.” 4
The Bible is reliable because it has evidence that proofs it really is the Word of God.
A. It accurately predicts future events. This is called Predictive Prophecy.
The significance of predictive prophecy is as follows:
1). It shows that the Bible has a Divine origin; it is not a humanly crafted fraud.
2). It establishes the fact of God.
3). Authenticates the Deity of Christ.
4). Demonstrates the inspiration of the Bible.
B. Examples
Prophecies concerning nations, the coming of Christ and the life and ministry of Christ.
1. The Book of Daniel- foretells the very day Jesus would ride into Jerusalem (triumphal entry) and then be killed and that the Romans would destroy the temple.
2. Specific Events in Christ life.
a. Born in Bethlehem- Micah 5:2
b. Proceeded by a Messenger (John The Baptist)- Isaiah 40:3-4, Malachi 3:1
c. Betrayed by a Friend- Psalm 41:9
d. Sold for Thirty pieces of Silver- Zechariah 11:12
e. The money to be thrown into God’s House- Zechariah 11:13
f. The Price given for the Potter’s Field- Zechariah 11:13
Mathematical probabilities that one man could fulfill these prophecies naturally.
There are more than three hundred prophecies in Scripture concerning the life and ministry of Christ.
8 Prophecies
The mathematical probability of eight prophesies being fulfilled by one man naturally are 1 in 1017 (1 with 17 zeros behind it).
To get a picture of this very large number the illustration is given using silver dollars. 1017 silver dollars would cover the face of Texas two feet deep. The mathematical probability is likened to marking one of the silver dollars, mixing then up, and blindfolding a man and having him pick the marked silver dollar on the first try.
48 Prophecies
The mathematical probability of forty-eight prophecies being fulfilled by one man naturally is 1 in 10157 (1 with 157 zeros behind it). The electron is the smallest object we know of. The electron is so small that it takes 2.5 times 1015 of them laid side by side to make a single line one inch long.
If we were going to count all the electrons in that line and count 250 of them each minute, day and night, it would take 19 million years to count just a one-inch line of electrons.
If you had a cubit inch of electrons, numbering 10157, and counted them the same way it would take 19 million times, 19 million times, 19 million or 6.9 times 1021 years to count all the electron in a cubic inch. 1 in 10157 is analogous to, again, marking one of the electrons, mixing them up, and blindfolding a man and having him pick the right one the first try. 5
III. RELEVANT- applies meaningfully to life [what it means]
Searching for meaning and purpose
a. “Three out of four teenagers (74% concur that they are still trying to figure out the purpose or meaning of their life. This journey is hindered by the fact that most of them
- 63% - admit that they do not have any comprehensive and clear ‘philosophy about life that consistently influences their lifestyle and decisions.’”
b. “One of the disturbing findings, though, is that a majority (53%) contends that they have decided that the main purpose of life is enjoyment and personal fulfillment.”
LIFE-TRANSFORMING POWER
If the Bible is indeed the Word of God, it should demonstrate its ability to transform lives and bring meaning.
We must first note that the Bible claims that Jesus Christ can fill the spiritual void within all people.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. (Matthew 5:6 )
Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My load is light. ( Matthew 11:28–30 )
Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life. ( John 4:14 )
I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. ( John 10:10 )
Christian scholar Harold Lindsell gives this perspective on the life-transforming importance of Christianity as revealed in the Scriptures:
We can trust the Bible [because] it does what it claims it will do: it transforms lives. Millions of people have testified that they have been forgiven and have received the gift of eternal life. Their prayers have been answered; their deepest needs satisfied. Lives have been radically changed. Thieves steal no more, liars become honest, adulterers live holy lives, and covetous people lose their greed. Churches, schools, and hospitals have risen as proof of the salutary effect the gospel of Jesus Christ has had on multitudes. 6
Psychiatrist J. T. Fisher put it this way:
If you were to take the total of all authoritative articles ever written by the most qualified of psychologists and psychiatrists on the subject of mental hygiene—if you were to combine them and refine them and cleave out the excess verbiage—if you were to take the whole of the meat and none of the parsley, and if you were to have these unadulterated bits of pure scientific knowledge concisely expressed by the most capable of living poets, you have an awkward and incomplete summation of the Sermon on the Mount. And it would suffer immeasurably through comparison. For nearly two thousand years the Christian world has been holding in its hands the complete answer to its restless and fruitless yearnings. 7
Footnotes:
1 Gleason L. Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction (Chicago: Moody, 1964), p. 19.
2 cited by Missler, Chuck., The Bible: An Extraterrestrial Message (Coeur d’Alene, ID: Koinonia House Inc.) 1996. p 9
3 Sir Frederick Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts (New York: Harper and Row, 1941), p. 23.
4 Nelson Glueck, Rivers in the Desert: History of Negev (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1969), p. 84.
5 The mathematical probabilities and illustrations referred to in this section are taken from Stoner, Peter W. Science Speaks (Chicago: Moody Press, 1963).
6 Harold Lindsell, “The Bible: God’s Inspired Word” in KJV Study Bible (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale, 1986), p. 2001.
7 J. T. Fisher and L. S. Hawley, A Few Buttons Missing (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1951), p. 273.
