Each year in the United States more than 50,000 books are published. It only takes a few moments of your time in Barnes and Noble to discover that there are books published on a variety of subjects, in fact just about every imaginable subject. There are many people who trust the Bible and say that it is different from any book that has ever been published. Those of us included in that group believe that the Bible was authored by God and is the only book that shows us how to know Him, how to live, and how to receive eternal life. Of course there are those who do not hold this view. They think the Bible is flawed and unreliable, and obviously not written by God. Many hold the view that the Bible is in the same class as the Greek stories about the gods on Mount Olympus or the writings of Confucius. To them the Bible is just another religious book. The greatest objection is offered when people say that the Bible is a book that we can trust with our life and destiny. How can a book written more than 2,000 years ago possibly be relevant to us today? In this message I have accepted the challenge to present you with overwhelming evidence that the Bible is true. The truth is, to reject the Bible is to close your eyes to an overwhelming amount of evidence in its favor. And more important, it is to ignore the reality of mankind’s own spiritual need and the salvation offered in the Bible’s message. In this limited amount of time I would like us to look at three areas: 1) What critics say about the Bible 2) What the historical evidence says and 3) What’s God’s Word has to say about itself.
I. The views of the critics in regard to the Bible.
A. The Bible is scientifically unreliable.
1. Since the Bible is full of scientific errors it can not be trusted in spiritual matters either.
2. Because of naturalistic assumptions many scientists have great difficulty accepting the miracles in the Bible.
3. The problem here is that many people have a limited view of an unlimited God.
B. The Bible is historically inaccurate.
1. People, who believe in the Bible, believe it has come from God error free.
2. When something in archaeology or ancient records seem to contradict the Bible the conclusion is immediately reached that the Bible is wrong.
3. Unless every Biblical name is authenticated through research and every fact verified the assumption is that the Bible is in error.
C. The Bible is outdated.
1. Not too many books are still in print that was finished more than 2,000 years ago.
2. That very mark of the Bible’s greatness is interpreted by some as a point of weakness.
3. Modern thinkers who have developed philosophies and theories about life can see no possible way that anything written so many centuries ago can be relevant to us today.
D. The Bible is the work of man.
1. There are those who believe that the Bible is the work of man’s fertile imagination and ancient mythological traditions.
2. The Bible by many is considered as a work of ancient mythology.
3. The Bible is just another collection of worthless religious writings.
II. What does the historical evidence say about the Bible?
A. The fact we want to look at first is the uniqueness of the Bible.
1. The Bible features 66 books written by 40 different authors representing about every walk of life.
2. The Bible was written over 1,600 years on three different continents.
3. The Bible was written in three languages: Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic.
4. A gap of 400 years separated the writing of the Old and New Testaments.
5. The Bible addresses man’s deepest questions, about the purpose of life, death and eternity.
6. The Bible has been proven to be archaeologically accurate time and time again.
7. All 318 prophecies in regard to the Messiah were fulfilled by Jesus.
a. The odds of any one person fulfilling just eight of the prophesies is one in one hundred billion.
b. The odds of any one person to fulfill forty eight of these prophesies would be one chance in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion , trillion, trillion times.
8. The Bible is most definitely a most unique book.
B. The Historical accuracy of the Bible.
1. The Bible claims to present an accurate record of the real history of man.
2. The serious challenges to the accuracy of the Bible is being answered by the work of archaeologists.
3. The Old Testament mentions a group of people called the Hittites, scholars doubted their existence until 1906 when the Hittite capital was discovered about 90 miles east of Ankara, the capital of Turkey.
4. Nelson Glueck, a Jewish archaeologist states that there has never been an archaeological discovery that has ever disproved a Biblical reference.
5. There is a mountain of manuscript evidence.
a. Homer’s “Illiad” which was composed around 800 B.C. has only about 650 manuscripts in existence today with the earliest being around 250 A.D.
b. The New Testament has approximately 14,000 manuscripts in existence with earliest dating around 125 A.D.
C. The Scientific accuracy of the Bible.
1. The heart of the apparent conflict between science and the Bible is not actual data it is based on the underlying beliefs of two sides and their conclusions.
2. The Bible is not a Science textbook and often uses figures of speech to describe facets of life that science would explain differently.
3. The Bible speaks of the sun setting and of the four corners of the earth all of which science would disagree with, but they were never meant to be taken literally.
4. When the Bible does speak directly to such matters it has been proven to be accurate and in agreement with the scientific evidence.
5. The God who created the universe and set in motion the laws that govern our world is the same God who inspired the Bible.
III. What does the Bible have to say about itself?
A. Peter was not suggesting that the Bible is more certain than the experience he had on the Mount of Transfiguration.
1. Peter’s experience was real and true, and the record in the Bible is dependable.
2. Peter indicates that the Old Testament prophets spoke of the same things he did and that their words are made more certain because the Transfiguration is a foreview of their fulfillment.
3. Basically Peter is presenting even more reasons to cling to the message that is being presented.
B. The primary thing to be known is that the prophetic Scriptures did not come into being through the prophet’s "own interpretation".
1. This is one of two important Scriptures affirming the divine inspiration of the Word of God.
2. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17—NIV)
3. Peter affirmed that the Scriptures were not written by men who used their own ideas and words, but by men of God who were “moved by the Holy Spirit.”
4. The word translated moved means “to be carried along, as a ship is carried by the wind.”
5. The Scriptures are “God-breathed”; they are not the inventions of men.
C. Since the Spirit gave the Word, only the Spirit can teach the Word and interpret it accurately.
1. Every false teacher claims that he is “led by the Spirit,” but his handling of the Word of God soon exposes him.
2. The Word of God was written to common people, not to theological professors. The writers assumed that common people could read it, understand it, and apply it, led by the same Holy Spirit who inspired it.
3. The humble individual believer can learn about God as he reads and meditates on the Word of God; he does not need the “experts” to show him the truth.
4. Men die, but the Word lives. Experiences fade, but the Word remains. The world grows darker, but the prophetic light shines brighter.
5. Jesus while on earth affirmed the claims of the Bible. In what He said about it and in the way He used it, the Son of
God showed the Bible to be the Word of God.
6. The individual authors in the Bible affirmed the Bible’s claims by accepting the other parts of the Bible as the Word of God.
7. In the way Jesus quoted and used the Scriptures, He made it clear that He accepted its claims for itself to be true.
Josh McDowell, a well-known apologist for Christianity, was approached by a salesman for the Great Books of the Western World series. This set includes the writings of the leading thinkers throughout the history of Western man. McDowell challenged the representative to take 10 of the authors from the same walk of life, the same time period, the same country, and the same language and ask them about one basic subject. "Would they agree?" Josh asked. The man said, "Are you kidding? You would have a conglomeration!" The amazing unity of the Bible, therefore, merits our trust. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible tells a single story: the rescue of mankind from sin through the death of Jesus Christ. The Old Testament presents Him as the hope of mankind; the New Testament shows Him to be the fulfillment of that hope. Now, if the Bible had been written by one person at one time, one could understand how it would be unified in general thoughts and specific details.
Augustine, who was a brilliant scholar of the fourth and fifth centuries. Although his godly mother prayed for him, he used his intellect and energies to live in wicked indulgence. But he could not find peace. So he began a long period of searching and intense self-examination. Tortured and driven, he continued his quest until he read these words in the Bible: "Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in licentiousness and lewdness, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts" (Romans 13:13-14). Augustine later wrote about his response to this passage: "No further would I read; nor needed I. For instantly at the end of this sentence, by a fight as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away." This former drunkard eventually became the bishop of Hippo in northern Africa, founded the first monastery in that region, and influenced much of Christian thought by his brilliant writing.
