Can anyone tell me what the first recorded words of the devil are? (Yea, hath God
said) What do you suppose his intent was in posing this question?
There was a course I took in Bible School called Biblical Hermeneutics. The course
exposed us to a number of principles used in understanding and interpreting the Bible.
One of those principles was called the First Mention Principle. It proposes that “God
indicates in the first mention of a Subject the truth with which that subject stands
connected in the mind of God.” Applying that principle to this passage of Scripture, I
would submit to you that in Gods mind Satan has an ongoing agenda to call His word
into question.
A couple of weeks ago someone made mention of the DaVinci code and its potential
impact on both the church and society. One thing seems clear. The trustworthiness of
the Bible is being called into question. I can hear that question echoing from centuries
past, Yea, hath God said....Has God indeed said....Is the Bible really the word of God?
Once Satan got Eve’s attention with questioning God’s word, he followed it up with the
suggestion that God lied ( you will not really die) and that He was hiding or withholding
something from them (He knows you’ll become like Him). (Gen 3:4,5) Seems like the
enemy knows quite a bit about human nature. If God lies and has a hidden agenda
then His word could not be trustworthy.
This morning I’d like you to “stir up your minds” as Peter put it, that you may be
mindful of the words that were spoken before by the Prophets... I hope to share some
things with you that will underscore the trustworthiness of Scripture, and give you
ammunition to use when anyone calls into question the Word of God.
Lets begin with the scribes of scripture. Jesus had much to say to and about the
scribes. There is a list of reproaches in Matthew ... woe to you scribes and pharisees.
It seems they were better at keeping the letter of the law than the spirit of the law. For
example in Matt. 23:23 He points out how scrupulous they were in tithing. They even
tithed on the smallest portions of income, and yet He says they fell short in the areas of
mercy and faith. But interestingly, in the sermon on the mount He says to His hearers
unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes...you shall not enter
heaven. The point is they worked hard at keeping the law, and again Jesus
underscores the meticulousness of their practice of the law, not in a negative way, but in
a complimentary way. They had their shortcomings, but they were instruments in the
hand of God in the matter of copying Gods’ Word.
The scribes were the copyists of scripture. There were no photo copiers or printers,
new copies of scripture were laboriously hand copied. It was critically important that the
copyists were meticulous in their transcription. Just before His comment on the of the
scribes meticulousness in tithing Jesus said, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one
tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled. These would be the smallest
letter or stroke in Hebrew writing. God would see to it that His word was preserved.
Josh McDowell in his book the trustworthiness of the Bible notes, “Scribes deeply
respected the biblical admonition, "You shall not add to the word which I command you,
nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I
command you" (Deut 4:2).” They followed an exacting system of regulations as they
transcribed the biblical scrolls. Consider some of the criteria used in transcription. When
a person was making a new text, he had to copy the original page with such exactness
that the number of words on a page could not be changed. If the original page had 124
words, then the page being copied had to have the same 124 words. Each line on a
new page had to be the exact same as the line on the old page. If the first line on the
original page had nine words, the first line on the copy page had to have nine words.
After a page was copied, the number of letters on that page was counted and compared
with the original. After a page was copied, each letter was counted and compared with
the original. After a page was copied, someone would check to see what the middle
letter was on the copy and the original.
"A synagogue roll [remember that they did not have paper as we do today] must be written on the
skins of clean animals, the length of each column must not extend less than 48 or more than 80
lines; the breadth must consist of 30 letters. No word or letter, not even a yod, must be written
from memory... Between every consonant the space of a hair or thread must intervene, between
every book three lines. Besides this the copyist must sit in full Jewish dress, and wash his whole
body" (Hebrew Text of the Old Testament, Davidson). (The Hebrew text resembles what
we refer to as a word search.)
The scribes were not allowed to copy sentence for sentence or even word for word.
They had to copy letter for letter. After a page was copied and checked by another, still
a third person would check to see what the middle word was on the page. Then, when
the whole book was finished, another would count the phrases. All this was to ensure
that their copies were accurately transcribed. Old copies and copies with errors were
discarded or destroyed. One reverent Rabbi warned a scribe, “take heed how you do
your work, for your work is the work of heaven, lest you drop or add a letter of the
manuscript, and so become a destroyer of the world. There are more details in
McDowells book and various other resources if you are interested. But now consider
the effect of the scribes meticulous work.
In 1947 in a cave near the Dead Sea there were a number of scrolls found. The
oldest copy of the Hebrew text up until that time was dated from about 1000 ad. The
scrolls discovered in that cave were dated back to the century before Jesus lived.
Among those scrolls there was two nearly complete copies of the book of Isaiah. Those
copies were word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95% of
the text. The 5 % variation consisted of obvious slips of the pen and variations in
spelling, which may be why these copies were discarded. But that discovery gives any
objective person convincing evidence that the Old Testament has not changed in more
than 2000 years.
It might be well to note also Jesus asserted about the O.T.He said in Luke 24 ’How
foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!"
"And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in
all the Scriptures concerning himself....He said to them, ’This is what I told you while I
was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of
Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms."
But now what about the New Testament. It was not copied by the scribes as was the
Old Testament. So what evidence do we have of it’s accuracy and trustworthiness?
Consider first the writings of Julius Caesar, the roman historian Tacitus or the Greek
historian Herodotus. Few question the authenticity of their writings. The oldest copies of
these writings date back to about 1000 years after the originals were penned. There are
10 to 20 copies in existence. Copies of Homers Illiad number about 650 and come
closer to the original writing...about 500 years. Do you hear anyone questioning the
authenticity of Homers Illiad? Now consider the New Testament writings. The earliest
manuscript copies date back to less than 100 years after the originals were penned.
(The writings of John to within 30 years of his death) And would you care to venture a
guess as to how many copies of the new testament exist today? (500, 1000, 10,000?
Over 24,000.) One other note. Early Christian writers quoted so often and so extensively
from the New Testament that nearly the entire new testament text can be reconstructed
from those various writings. A prominent scholar stated: "It cannot be too strongly
asserted that in substance the text of the Bible is certain: Especially is this the case with
the New Testament……This can be said of no other ancient book in the world"
There is also archaeological affirmation of the Scriptures. Since the age of
enlightenment the Bible has come under increasing criticism. So called “scholars” have
attacked the veracity of the Bible saying many of the Biblical places and people were
fictional not historical. Time will not allow us to explore this subject, but let me give you
one illustration. As recently as 1992 some of the “biblical scholars” claimed that there
were no literary criteria for believing David to be a historical figure. Yet in 1993
archeologists digging in upper Galilee discovered an inscription from the ninth century
BC describing the "house of David." Jeffrey Sheler, an award-winning journalist who has
been a religion writer for U.S. News & World Report, wrote: "The fragmentary reference
to David was a historical bombshell. Never before had the familiar name of Judah’’s
ancient... king been found in the records of antiquity outside the pages of the Bible"
Do a little research and you will find hundreds of similar stories in which archeological
discoveries reaffirm the trustworthiness of the Bible.
Archeologist Nelson Glueck wrote in “rivers in the desert”: "it may be clearly stated
categorically that no archeological discovery has ever controverted a single biblical
reference. Scores of archeological findings have been made which confirm in clear
outline or exact detail historical statements in the Bible" Josh McDowell quotes another
prominent archeologist William F. Albright as saying, "There can be no doubt that
archeology has confirmed the substantial historicity of Old Testament tradition…… The
excessive scepticism shown toward the Bible by important historical schools of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries……has been progressively discredited"
Then there is the prophetic confirmation of the trustworthiness of Gods Word.
Norm Geisler claims that a study of 25 top-rated psychics revealed that 92 percent of
their predictions were totally wrong, while the remaining 8 percent could be explained by
chance or general knowledge of circumstances. The Bible itself says in Deut 18:22 that
if a prophet makes a prophecy and it does not come to pass, have no respect for that
prophet. That puts all of the top-rated psychics along with all weathermen in the no
respect category.
But what about the Bible? Doug Winnail says that scholars assert that about 27% of
the Bible is prophecy. There are some 2000 predictions some of which are very specific.
Norm Geisler writes, “unlike any other book, the Bible offers a multitude of specific
predictions——some hundreds of years in advance——that have been literally fulfilled
or else point to a definite future time when they will come true"
Hundreds of Bible prophecies were fulfilled just in the life, death and resurrection of
Jesus. For example Isaiah wrote He would be born of a virgin, Micah tells us that birth
would be in Bethlehem. Hosea prophesied that He would sojourn in Egypt. Jeremiah
prophesied that His birth would cause a massacre of children. Isaiah foretold that He
would live in Galilee, Zechariah predicted that He would enter Jerusalem on a donkey
specifically the foal of a donkey. Hosea and Jonah announced He would die with
transgressors and be buried in the tomb of a rich man. David wrote that not a bone
would be broken. There are some 500 prophecies that were fulfilled just in the life of
Christ, some very specific, and some made over 2000 years before He was born.
It seems to me that the fulfilled prophecies concerning Christ are more than sufficient
to give us a reason to trust God’s Word, not even taking into consideration the hundreds
of prophecies concerning people and events. Josh McDowell says "Not in the entire
gamut of Greek and Latin literature…… can we find any real specific prophecy of a
great historic event to come in the distant future, nor any prophecy of a Savior to arise in
the human race". The Bible literally stands alone in its ability to accurately predict the
future. Hank Hanegraaff of the Christian Research Institute says, “ it is Statistically
preposterous that any or all of the Bible’’s very specific, detailed prophecies could have
been fulfilled through chance, good guessing, or deliberate deceit. When you look at
some of the improbable prophecies of the Old and New Testaments, it seems incredible
that skeptics —— knowing the authenticity and historicity of the texts —— could reject
the statistical verdict: the Bible is the Word of God...”
So now consider the meticulous preservation of the Old Testament, the incredible
weight of historical evidence for the New Testament, add to these the Archeological
discoveries that almost monthly continue to affirm the veracity of Scripture, and the
hundreds upon hundreds of fulfilled prophecies that sets the Bible in a class of its own.
With these things alone considered it’s surprising that any thinking objective person
would venture even the slightest hesitancy in trusting implicitly the record that God has
given us.
The writer to the Hebrews says, “For the word of God is living and powerful, and
sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and
of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” How
often have you personally experienced the power of Gods word in your life? You’ve
been reading along and a thought or challenge or truth suddenly seems to leap off the
page and be directed specifically to your heart and mind. The word of God is living and
powerful...
Timothy record for us, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God
may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work....” Every page of Scripture
has something profitable for us. If our heart is open as we read and study Gods Word
we will find theological truth, admonition concerning an area of our life we need to
change, directions for making such an change, and practical information on living life
successfully. Ps. 119:9,11 says...(how shall a young man...) I know several of you who
have put this truth into practice in your life and you have experienced the unique power
of Gods Word.
The Bible is a truly unique book. McDowell summarizes it as a book written over a
1,500 year span; written over 40 generations; written by more than 40 authors, from
every walk of life - including kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, poets, statesmen,
scholars, prophets, ... etc. It’s a book written in different places ranging from the
wilderness of Mount Sinai to the prison walls of Paul! It’s a book written at different times
of peace and war, at different moods of joy and sorrow. It’s a book written on three
continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe), written in three languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and
Greek). It’s a book whose subject matter includes hundreds of topics. Yet, the biblical
authors spoke with harmony and continuity from Genesis to Revelation about one
unfolding story: "God’s redemption of the human race."
The Bible is also unique in its "survival". Being written on material that perishes and
having to be copied and recopied for hundreds of years before the invention of the
printing press did not hinder God in His preservation of His word. Compared with other
ancient writings, the Bible has more manuscript evidence than any ten pieces of
classical literature combined. The Bible survived not only time, but also persecution,
both political and intellectual. In A.D. 300 the Roman emperor Diocletian ordered every
Bible burned because he thought that by destroying the Scriptures he could destroy
Christianity. Anyone caught with a Bible would be executed. But just 25 years later, the
Roman emperor Constantine ordered that 50 perfect copies of the Bible be made at
government expense. Voltaire, the noted French writer, who died in 1778, said that in
one hundred years from his time Christianity would be swept from existence. Only fifty
years after Voltaire’s death, the Geneva Bible Society used his press and his house to
produce stacks of Bibles. No other book has been so scrutinized, and vilified. No other
book has been subjected to such mass attacks. Nevertheless, it is still living and
powerful and sharper than a two edged sword. It remains the book most read and most
printed and most loved. One author writes, “If the Bibles criticism was ever effective in
the past, it would have rendered the Bible unworthy of the critics’ attention today. The
fact that critics continue to target the Bible proves that their past criticism did nothing
less than strengthen the belief in the Bible itself! “
Yea, hath God said? Indeed He has. Isaiah 46:9,10...”do not forget the things I have
done throughout history. For I am God - I alone! I am God, and there is no one else like
me. Only I can tell you what is going to happen even before it happens. Everything I
plan will come to pass, for I do whatever I wish... The Psalmist says “For ever O Lord
thy word is settled in Heaven” and then he adds, Thy word is true from the beginning.”
Isaiah writes, “The grass withers, the flower fades: but the word of our God shall stand
for ever.” Peter writes, the word of God lives and abides forever. And Jesus said, “Man
shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
