I invite you to take God's Word
and turn with me to the book of 2 Timothy, 2 Timothy chapter
3. And I want to begin by reading
verses 16 and 17, which will be a launching point for us in
this message. The title that I have been assigned
is this, Is the Bible Just Another Book? 2 Timothy 3, I want to
begin in verse 16, I think addresses this issue directly, and it needs
to be before us and deeply embedded in our heart and in our soul. The Word of God reads, all Scripture
is inspired by God and profitable for teaching. for reproof, for
correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be
adequate, equipped for every good work. I want to begin by
asking you this question, why do you believe that the Bible
is the Word of God? Why do you believe that this
book is not just another book? Why are you convinced that the
Bible is a supernatural book written by our sovereign God? That is a very important question
before each and every one of us here today. And from a divine
perspective, we believe that the Bible is God's Word because
its author, the Holy Spirit. has borne witness to our spirit
and to our hearts that this book contains the very voice of the
living God to us. It is the Holy Spirit who has
convinced us of the veracity of Scripture. The Spirit has
brought its inward testimony into our hearts, and He has persuaded
us that this book is like no other book in the world, that
this book is God's book. And this is an inside witness
that the author himself, the Holy Spirit, has brought home
to our hearts. But this does not mean that there
are no rational supports for this conviction, as there are
many sound evidences and many convincing proofs that the Bible
is God's Word. Our faith is built upon facts. The foundation of our faith is
this book, and there are many convincing and compelling reasons
why we believe that this book is like no other book. Now, it
still requires a step of faith, but I trust that as a result
of our time together for this session, that you will see that
it is a reasonable step of faith. In this message, I want to present
the case why the Bible is God's Word. The rational argument should
be known by each one of us here today. There needs to be more
going in our heads than simply, I was raised this way, or I was
brought up this way, or I went to VBS as a child, and I just
always have believed that this book is the Bible. There needs
to be some strong pillars that uphold our convictions that the
Bible is the very Word of God. So I want to lay out for you
ten reasons why we believe the Bible is the Word of God. I would
urge you even to write these down in your Bible, to have these
inside the front cover, on the back cover, as a reference point
to come back to again and again that, yes, this is why I am persuaded
that the Bible is the Word of the living God. And reason number
one, we want to begin at the most basic entry-level place. And number one is the direct
claims of the Bible. The Bible is authoritative in
all matters that it addresses, and this includes its own direct
claims about itself. The Bible actually claims to
be the Word of God. This is not something that we
are hoisting onto the Bible. And when a defendant is brought
into a courtroom, he is allowed to testify for himself. In this passage, 2 Timothy 3
and verse 16, we read, all Scripture is inspired by God. The Bible claims not to be the
word of men, not to be the word of culture or society. The Bible claims to be God-breathed. The ESV translates it, breathed
out by God. This word, inspired by God, these
three words, come from one Greek word, theonoustos, theos for
God. Noustos is breath or spirit. Theonoustos means God breathed,
that God literally breathed out the Scriptures as it was recorded
by secondary human authors. This verse says nothing about
God inspiring the authors. The authors, as we were taught
so well in our last session, were moved by the Holy Spirit.
2 Peter 1, verse 21. But this does not say that the
authors were inspired. This says that the text of Scripture
is inspired. Now, the Scripture is not breathed
into by God such that what men wrote suddenly became inspired. Rather, what this is saying is
that all Scripture is breathed out by God. God is the source. God is the ultimate author of
Scripture. The Bible is the product of the
divine breath. Scripture is the product of the
supernatural divine operation. Over 2,000 times in the Old Testament,
we read statements like this, thus says the Lord, or the Lord
said, or something like this, the word of the Lord came to
me saying, or the law of the Lord, or the precepts of the
Lord. Again and again and again, we
read these direct claims by Scripture. I will put my words in your mouth,"
says the Lord. And when we come to the New Testament,
we read verses that are equally emphatic. We read, for example,
in 1 Thessalonians 4 and verse 15, For this we say to you by
the Word of the Lord." The authors were very aware that their message
did not originate within themselves. It was not dredged up from the
culture or the society, but that this is a transcendent message
that is coming down out of heaven through their pen to us. And
moreover, we read statements like this in 1 Corinthians 11,
verse 23, "'For I received from the Lord that which I delivered
to you.'" And moreover, when we compare Old Testament verses
with New Testament verses, many times what God says in the Old
Testament, it is recorded as the Scripture says it in the
New Testament, or the flip-flop. And so God and the Scripture
speak with one voice because Scripture is the voice of God. Augustine and Calvin both said,
when the Bible speaks, God speaks. So this is where we begin, the
direct claims of Scripture. The Scripture is very crystal
clear. This book is the Word of God. Now, second, the perfect unity
of the Bible. The more one studies the Bible,
the more we are impressed with the amazing unity in the midst
of its diversity. And Dr. Thomas touched on this
in our last lesson, and I want to stand on his shoulders just
for a moment and elaborate just a little bit with this. The amazing
diversity of the Scripture, 66 different books written over
a period of some 1,500 to 1,600 years, over 40 different authors
on three different continents, writing in three different languages.
Consider the diversity of the authors. Two were kings, three
were priests, one was a physician, two were fishermen, two were
shepherds, one was a former Pharisee, two were statesmen, one was a
tax collector, one was a military general, one was a scribe, one
was a cupbearer, and one was a goat herder. And consider the
diversity of the literary genre with which they wrote. There's
narrative, poetry, prophecy, proverb, parable, gospel, epistle,
allegory, song, legal writings. Consider the diversity of where
they were when they wrote the Bible, the Sinai Desert, the
palace of Jerusalem, a cave in Judea. the palace of Shushan,
beside the river of Babylon, the land of Egypt, Macedonia,
Greece, Rome, a barren island known as Patmos, and the diversity
of its many parts. There are almost 3,000 different
cast members in the storyline of the Bible, spanning some 1,189
chapters, comprising some 31,000 verses, requiring 700,000 words,
containing three and a half million letters. And yet, despite this complex diversity, This book speaks of one plan
of salvation, one people of God, one story of human history, one
problem of mankind, one solution for this problem, one standard
of morality, one design for the family, one chief object of its
message. It is always speaking with one
voice. It never contradicts itself.
How can you account for this unity in the midst of such vast
diversity? And the only reasonable explanation
that there is, is that there is one author who stands behind
this entire book and has breathed it out, and that author is God
Himself. Let me illustrate it this way.
Suppose every state in the union was asked to excavate its natural
stone, box it in a crate, put it on a railroad car, and send
it to the nation's capital. All 50 states would participate. There came crates containing
limestone. Other states would send marble.
Other states would send sandstone. Other states would send granite.
Once those trains arrive in Washington, D.C., they are uncrated, and
they are all brought together. They seem to be of different
size and shape. Some are square. Some are rectangular. Some are cubical. Some are a
cylinder form. And as they are brought together,
all 50 stones interface perfectly and perfectly comprise a replica
of the Jefferson Memorial Monument. with its domes, with its sidewalls,
with its buttresses, with its arches, with its transepts, not
a gap, not a flaw, nothing missing, a perfect, perfect fit. How would
you account for that? Any thinking person who had two
brain cells that might be touching one another between their two
ears, the only explanation that you could come to is that there
was a master architect behind the entire project who had sent
out specific measurements for what he desired. And as it all
came together, he oversaw the project that it would be fitted
together. You would have to assume that
there was one major architect. And so it is with the Word of
God, every doctrine, every truth, every principle, every practice,
every standard of ethics, it all fitting together to form
one temple of truth. It is the Word of the living
God. Not to believe this would be
synonymous with there being an explosion in a print shop And
all of the letters just happen to land on the ground and form
the Oxford English Dictionary without a mistake, in perfect
alphabetical order, and without any misspelled words. Do you
think that would just happen? Absolutely not. The Bible speaks
with one voice on every issue that it addresses, and we as
believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we ought to have the greatest
confidence and the strongest faith that this book is the inspired
Word of the living God. I want to give you a third reason.
The third reason is the reliable transmission of the Bible. Far more than any other book
of antiquity, the Bible has been passed down to us with extraordinary
precision. Now, let's begin with the Old
Testament. Until recently, the oldest known
Hebrew manuscript of any length did not date earlier than the
first part of the 10th century after Christ. And that would
be a gap of some 13 to 1400 years from the time of the writing
of the last book of the Old Testament to the oldest copy of the Old
Testament that we had. Let me state that again, a gap
of some 13 to 1400 years. And then in 1947 and in 1948. There was a little shepherd boy
in the northwest section of the Dead Sea. He was picking up some
stones and chucking them into a cave like little boys would
be prone to do, and he heard a thud noise inside that cave. He walked in to discover one
of the great archaeological treasures of modern history, the Dead Sea
Scrolls. And over the next months and
the next period of time, they went into 11 different caves,
and they found contained a treasure that had been in there for some
thousand years. precious copies of copies of
the original text. There were two copies of Isaiah. There was an entire copy of the
Psalms. There was an entire copy of the
book of Leviticus. And there were thousands of fragments
of different sections of the Old Testament. And when the Hebrew
scholars gathered together, and when they saw this and began
to piece these manuscripts together, in a moment, in an instant, our
oldest copy of the Old Testament was pushed back a millennium,
back to the days virtually of the first century church. And
what they discovered was an astonishing accuracy that over those thousand
years, the transmission of the Word of God had been passed down
with jaw-dropping accuracy. There is no other book of antiquity
that has been so carefully passed down to us than this Bible, the
Word of God. And the New Testament is even
more so. We have almost 6,000 early Greek
manuscripts of the New Testament and another 10,000 copies in
the Latin Vulgate to say nothing of Syriac and other Semitic languages. We compare this with other ancient
books written at the same time, it's really embarrassing. the
full plethora of manuscripts that we have that substantiate
the reliable transmission of the Word of God down to us in
the entire copying process. For example, let's just take
Homer, who lived 800 years BC. There is a time gap between when
he wrote what he wrote and the oldest copy of Homer some 400
years. With Plato, it is 1,300 years.
With Caesar and his writings, 1,000 years. But when we come to the New Testament,
the earliest document that we have that has pieces of the Old
Testament, it's not 1,300 years, it's not a millennium, it's 50
years. And then the earliest copy of
an entire New Testament, it's but some 200 years. And the copies are not six or
seven, it's 6,000. No, the confidence that we should
have in this book being passed down to us, it is unsurpassed
for any books of antiquity at any level. Why do we believe
that what we hold in our hand is the written Word of the living
God There is its direct claims. There is its perfect unity. There is its reliable transmission. Fourth, the historical accuracy
of the book. Take, for example, the historical
accuracy with which Mark wrote the gospel of Luke and the book
of Acts. F.F. Bruce of the University
of Manchester in England, in a work entitled, The New Testament
Documents, Are They Reliable? Bruce writes, one of the most
remarkable tokens of Luke's accuracy is his sure familiarity with
the proper titles of all the notable persons who are mentioned
in his pages. This was by no means an easy
feat in his day, as it would be in ours because he had… it
was not so simple to consult convenient books of reference. And Bruce goes on to talk about,
as Luke records the book of Acts, not only is he geographically
spot on at every point without having an atlas in front of him,
but that as he addresses the various titles of Roman officials,
he does so with absolute perfection. And Bruce goes on to argue it
would be like going to Oxford University, your very first day
on campus, and being able to address everyone on faculty and
everyone in higher administration by their proper titles, provost,
master, rector, president. And many of the original Roman
leaders, they were moving up the ladder, and some of their
titles were being changed. And every time that Luke records
what they were, he has it exactly right. Never a mistake historically. And the more the archaeologists
begin to dig into the sand of the Middle East and they uncover
treasures, they are not finding mistakes in the Bible. They are
bringing confirmation of the historical accuracy of the Bible. They have uncovered the pool
of Bethesda in John 5, verse 2, that for many years liberals
said, see, the Bible is wrong. It cannot be correct because
there is no pool of Bethesda. Oops. And the archaeologists
have discovered it now, many feet below the surface, buried
in the sand of time. The Bible is always correct. for years, the first five books
in the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy,
the liberals threw every assault they could at this and said,
well, there wasn't even the use of language and letters that
would allow someone to write the Pentateuch at that time. Well, the archaeologists have
discovered not simply that, yes, Moses was able to write that
using the language of the day. There was a postal system that
was functioning in that part of the world as people were writing
and exchanging letters with one another. There has never been
a book written in antiquity with the historical accuracy of the
Bible. Now let's move number five, the
scientific accuracy of the Bible. This is what we would expect
of a book that claims to be God-breathed. We would expect every subject
matter that God addresses to be recorded with absolute perfection. Now, let's take the first book
in the Bible, Genesis, or the very first verse in the Bible,
Genesis 1.1, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the
earth. A very famous scientist, Herbert
Spencer, who died in 1903, announced that everything in the universe
fits into one of five categories. time, force, action, space, and
matter. In the beginning time, God, the
force, created, that's action, the heaven, that's space, and
the earth, that is matter. In the very first opening line
of the Bible, there is this scientifically accurate statement that accounts
for everything. Or for example, for many years,
The scientists have said, the number of the stars in heaven. Hipparchus wrote two centuries
before Christ, as he looked up into the starry skies above,
he counted the stars and he said, in the universe, there are 1,022
stars. That's more than in Hollywood
right there. And then Ptolemy, four centuries
later, up to the time, said, no, you've miscounted. Two centuries
after Christ, there are 1,056 stars. And then subsequently, a man
named Kepler, writing 1,500 years later, accounted for 1,055 stars. That's what science accepted.
That was the standard of the day in the scientific world of
advanced learning. until in 1610, Galileo invented
the telescope, and he put it up to his eye and looked into
the sky above, and what he saw brought him to his knees, that
there is an inestimable number of stars in the heavens In fact,
they tell us there are a thousand million billion stars, and those
are the only ones that we can even begin to put our arms around,
10 to the 26th power. But what did the Bible say all
along? Did the Bible make just inane statements like that? Moses,
as he was trained in all of the wisdom of the Egyptians, did
he make statements in the Bible that reflected the learning of
the day? Jeremiah, Isaiah, no. They spoke what was God-breathed. And we read in Jeremiah 33, verse
22, as the host of heaven cannot be numbered. We need to understand
something. The Bible is never catching up
with science. The science world is always catching
up with the Bible. The Bible is true in all matters
that it affirms, or how about this, that the earth is round. You know, it wasn't until relatively
not long ago, we used to say Columbus sailed the ocean blue
in 1492. It was science that said, if
you sail out through the straits of Gibraltar, you'll go over
the edge. The world is flat. They had no
concept that the world is round. And yet, 2,700 years ago, Isaiah
recorded in Isaiah 40, verse 22, it is He who sits above the
circle of the earth. The Word of God identifies this
globe upon which we live as a circle, as a globe. How did Isaiah know
this? Because holy men of God spoke
as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Or that the earth is
suspended in space. For many, many years, It was
believed by educated, learned people that the earth rested
on the shoulders of Atlas. And that pacified people until
someone said, well, what's Atlas standing on? And someone said,
well, Atlas is standing on an elephant. And then someone said,
what's the elephant standing on? And they said, well, the
elephant is standing on a sea of snakes. And it went on and
on. There was no end to it. Yet Job
26, verse 7 says, he stretches out the north over empty space. and hangs the earth." Are you
ready for this? He hangs the earth on nothing. That's recorded in the book of
Job. Job was a contemporary of the patriarchs. Job lived some
4,000 years ago, during the days of Abraham probably. How would
Job be able to know this and record this? And the answer is
that the Bible is the inspired Word of the living God, or that
the earth is rotating. We never understood that. We
always believed that the sun is rotating around the earth. And then Copernicus during the
time of the Reformation made this great discovery. It's not
the sun rotating around the earth, it is the earth that is rotating
around the sun. But as it does, the earth is
spinning on its axis every 24 hours, and the earth is traveling
around the sun once every 365 days. And as the earth moves
with the sun, the sun is circling the Milky Way. way, yet Job recorded
this long ago. Job 38 verse 14, the earth is
changed like clay under the seal. And that word changed means turned
like a cylinder-like seal being rolled over clay, almost like
someone… like a woman in the kitchen would be rolling her…
what would you call that, sweetheart? a rolling pin. Yeah, I use them
all the time. Actually, I'm doing the laundry
at that point, and I'm unable to give attention to that. But
that was how Job pictured the earth rotating on its axle. Now again, why don't we open
the Bible and find statements that are just inane and have
been disproved hundreds of years ago? Why do we not read that
the earth is flat? Why do we not read that the earth
is resting on an elephant? Why do we not read things that
have been long since disproved? It goes, all Scripture is inspired
by God. There are many other proofs that
can be given. The whole evaporation process,
have you ever thought about that? That evaporation, the water rises
out of the Gulf of Mexico, the wind blows, and it's suspended
up in the cloud, and then it comes over Orlando at 2 o'clock
every afternoon. And at the command of God's voice,
it just releases the water and it comes down onto the ground. In another parts of the country,
it then goes into streams and then rivers and flows back out
into the sea. Why doesn't the sea overflow?
Why are rivers just always constantly flowing and there is no place
else that the water goes except the evaporation process? That's
just Ecclesiastes chapter 1. That's just simply Job 26 verse
8, Job 36, 27 and 28. The Bible records that whole
evaporation cycle long before it was ever discovered by man. We can read the book of Leviticus
and all of the laws of sanitation, etc., etc., or that the life
is in the blood, Leviticus 1711. George Washington, they say,
they just bled the man to death because he was sick, and they
wanted to get the bad blood out of him. And then they discovered,
no, it's not that we need to take blood out of him. In fact,
he needed to have blood put into him. Yet the Bible is making
scientifically accurate statements all along. Let me give you number
six, the fulfilled prophecies of the Bible. We could just believe
that the Bible is the Word of God on this one point alone. This is staggering. Say, do you
realize that at the time the Bible was written, 27% of the
Bible was prophetic? There are some 1,817 prophecies
of some nature in the Bible at the time the author wrote the
Scripture. A prophecy is pre-written history.
Only God knows the future, and the reason that God knows the
future is because God has foreordained the future. God's not looking
down the tunnel of time to see anything because God already
knows everything, and God has already foreordained everything,
and He records some of it for us in the Scripture. And we read
all kinds of prophecies regarding individuals that Abraham would
have a son, did he, in the… in his latter years, that there
would be rulers like Cyrus of Persia. One hundred years before
Cyrus assumed the throne, his name in Isaiah 45 verse 1 is
recorded. Would you like to predict who
the President of the United States will be 100 years from today? It's impossible. But here is
the Bible giving name and country of these rulers long before they're
even birthed and come onto the scene, or nations such as the
fall of the northern kingdom, or the length of Judah's captivity,
or empires regarding the fall of Babylon, or cities such as
the destruction of Tyre, etc., etc., etc. There is a mounting
case of evidence. that substantiates the perfect
truthfulness of the Word of God. There are no other books in the
world that are doing this. How about the prophecies concerning
the Lord Jesus Christ? The greatest fulfillments of
prophecy are found at the first coming of Christ, not even the
second coming, but at the first coming. It was prophesied in
the Old Testament that Jesus would be born of the seed of
Abraham, Jesse, and David. He would be born of a virgin
called Emmanuel, born in Bethlehem. Great persons would come to adore
Him. There would be the killing of
children in Bethlehem. He would be called out of Egypt.
He would be preceded by a forerunner. He would be anointed with the
Holy Spirit. He'd be a prophet like Moses,
a priest after the order of Melchizedek. He would be entering into His
public ministry in Galilee. He would be entering publicly
into Jerusalem and come into the temple. He would live in
poverty and meekness, tenderness and compassion. He would be without
deceit. He'd be full of zeal, preaching
with parables, working miracles, bearing reproach. He would be
rejected by his own Jewish brethren. The Jews and Gentiles would combine
together against Him. He would be betrayed by a friend. His disciples would forsake Him.
He would be sold for 30 pieces of silver, and that price would
be given for a potter's field. He would die with intense suffering,
yet be silent under that suffering. He would be struck on the cheek.
His visage would be marred. He would be spit upon and scourged.
His hands and His feet would be nailed to the cross. He would
be forsaken by God. He would cry out, my God, my
God, why have you forsaken me? He would be mocked. Gall and
vinegar would be offered to Him. His garments would be parted.
Lots would be cast for His clothing. He would be numbered among the
transgressors. He would intercede for His murderers.
He would die, but not a bone of His body would be broken.
He would be pierced long before crucifixion would even ever be
invented. He would be buried with the rich.
His flesh would not see corruption. He would be raised from the dead.
He would ascend back to the right hand of God the Father. All of
this recorded hundreds of years before Jesus ever entered this
world. And many of these prophecies
are fulfilled not by His friends but by His enemies who stand
to lose the most with their fulfillment. And many of these prophecies
being fulfilled before he was born, while he's in his mother's
womb, and while he is in the grave. The statistical probability that
all of these prophecies would be fulfilled in one historical
person, someone has said, is like this, the state of Texas. It is from the top to the bottom,
801 miles. Across, it is almost that long. If the state of Texas was to
be filled up with silver dollars, some think it is. But if it was
to be filled up with silver dollars, two feet deep, and one silver
dollar was marked and randomly put into the state of Texas.
We put you in a helicopter. You fly over the state of Texas,
and you can say to the pilot, lower me here. You roll up your
sleeve. You reach down. You pick up one
silver dollar. The statistical probability that
you would put your hand on that one silver dollar is greater
in its fulfillment than that all of these prophecies would
be fulfilled in one historical figure, Jesus of Nazareth. Every one of these prophecies
are validations of the inspiration, the infallibility, and the authority,
and the inerrancy of the Word of the living God. Let God be
found true. Let every man be found a liar,
the Scripture says. Let me give you a seventh reason. The Lord's testimony to the Bible
It is by common consensus that the greatest man who has ever
lived on the planet earth is Jesus Christ. Even false religions
acknowledge the greatness of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we
as believers believe He is the Son of God, the Son of Man, the
God-Man. James Montgomery Boyce writes,
the most important reason for believing the Bible to be the
Word of God written and hence the sole authority for Christians
in all matters of faith and conduct is the teaching of Jesus Christ. Now, what did Jesus have to say
about the Bible? Well, Jesus said in Matthew 4,
verse 4, man shall not live by bread alone, and He quotes Deuteronomy
8, verse 3, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth
of God. Jesus didn't believe simply in
the ideas of the Bible or the general concepts of the Bible.
Jesus affirmed the inerrancy and the inspiration of every
word that comes out of the mouth of God. In fact, in Matthew 5,
verse 18, Jesus said, "'For truly I say to you, until heaven and
earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from
the law till all is accomplished.'" The smallest letter in the Hebrew
language is the yod. It's just like our apostrophe.
It's like an eyelash. It is such a small letter that
you almost need a magnifying glass at times to spot it. And then the smallest stroke,
that would be like what separates in our language a lowercase l
from a lowercase t. There's just one little stroke
that separates the l from the t. Jesus is claiming inerrancy
and authority for the Bible, not just every word, but every
letter and every little marking on every letter of every word. in the Bible. Jesus said in Luke
16, verse 17, it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away
than for one stroke of a letter of the law to fail. Jesus said
it would be easier for the whole universe to go out of existence
than for one little marking on one little letter of one little
word in the Bible to fail. Jesus said in John 17, 17, your
word is truth. If I was to ask you what are
the four stories in the Old Testament that are most ridiculed by liberals
and skeptics and unbelievers, I think this is the top four.
One, that there is a literal Adam and Eve. Two, that there
was a real man named Noah, and there was a worldwide flood. Three, that there were two towns,
Sodom and Gomorrah, that were totally destroyed by fire out
of heaven. And number four, that there was
a great fish that swallowed the prophet Jonah. Do you know that
Jesus, during His earthly ministry, at times when He was pressed
the most by His enemies and His critics, Jesus affirmed all four
of those stories in literal fashion. In fact, Jesus said, my second
coming is like the days of Noah. Jesus said the final judgment
will be like that which fell on Sodom and Gomorrah. Jesus
spoke of the permanency of marriage and spoke of Adam and Eve and
the two becoming one. And Jesus spoke of His own resurrection
as the sign of Jonah the prophet, who was three days and three
nights in the belly of the sea monster, so shall the Son of
Man be in the earth. Jesus affirmed His resurrection,
His second coming, and the final judgment on the most controversial
stories in the Old Testament. No, Jesus was not explaining
away the Bible. Jesus was building on the solid
rock of the revelation of Scripture. In John 10, 35, the Scripture
cannot be broken, He said. Luke 18, 31, all things which
are written through the prophets will be accomplished. Matthew
26, 24, the Son of Man is to go just as it is written of Him. In fact, Jesus put His arms around
the entire Old Testament canon for us. It is 39 books, and He
affirmed the Old Testament canon in Luke 11, verse 51, when He
spoke of from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah. The
blood of Abel is in Genesis. The blood of Zechariah is in
2 Chronicles, which is the last book in the Hebrew Bible. That is a literary device known
as inclusio, which are like bookends around the whole. It's like saying
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and what is implied, and every
grain of sand in between. Jesus affirmed, not the apocrypha. He affirmed the 39 books of the
Old Testament, and in John 16, He guaranteed the New Testament
canon as well. I must quickly wrap this up.
Let me give you number eight. the amazing indestructibility
of the Bible. Isaiah 40, verse 8, the grass
withers, the flower fades away, but the Word of our God abides
forever. Kings have banned it. Emperors
have forbid it. Critics have assailed it. Philosophers
have denounced it. Atheists have assaulted it. Infidels
have mocked it. And there it stands. The French skeptic Voltaire,
who was so influenced by the agnostic John Locke, said centuries
ago, 100 years from my day, there will not be a Bible on the earth
except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity seeker. Fifty years after Voltaire's
death, The Geneva Bible Society purchased the infidel's house
and moved in their printing presses and began to print the Word of
God. And they stacked Bibles all the
way to the ceiling until no one could enter his house anymore,
filled with the Word of God. And 200 years later, Christmas
Eve 1933, the British government paid the Russian government for
one ancient copy of the Bible, $510,000. And on the very same day, a first
edition of Voltaire on the streets of Paris sold for 11 cents. Where is the wise man of this
age? Where is the debater of this world? No, it is the Word
of God that is indestructible. Psalm
119 verse 89, forever, O Lord, Your Word is settled in heaven.
Listen, this isn't the book of the week, the book of the month,
or the book of the year. This is the book of the ages.
This book is indestructible. It is irresistible. It is inexhaustible. It is unquenchable. It is unconquerable. It is uncontainable. Mark 13,
31, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will abide
forever. Number nine, the ethical superiority
of the Bible. Listen, when we pick up this
book, there is recorded in this book a transcendent moral code,
a superior moral ethic that surpasses anything else that is written
in this world. Pagan religions were known for
their desecration of morality, but we read in this book, honor
your father and mother. You shall not murder. You shall
not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall
not bear false witness. We don't pick up this book and
read things like are in other religious books like go kill
the infidels. We pick up this book and read,
Love Your Enemies. Love your wives, love your children. Think of all that has come from
the Bible, the sanctity of human life, racial equality, the dignity
of women, good citizenship, social justice, legal equity, selfless
service, individual integrity, hard work. Everything that is
right and decent and honorable is set forth in the Scripture,
and it is this very law that is written upon our hearts. Finally, why do we believe the
Bible is the Word of God beyond the inward witness of the Holy
Spirit? What are the essential objective
reasons why our faith is well placed in this book? Number ten,
the supernatural power of the Bible. Bottom line, the proof
is in the pudding. This book saves, this book sanctifies,
this book separates, this book purifies, this book prunes, this
book convicts, this book comforts, this book guides. Listen to Psalm
19, verse 7. The law of the Lord is perfect,
restoring the soul. The testimony of the Lord is
sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are
right, rejoicing the heart. Commandments of the Lord are
pure, enlightening the eyes. This book is a mirror. It gives
us self-knowledge. We see ourselves for who we are
and what we are. Every time we open this book,
this book is seed. It contains the germ of life. This book is a lamp unto our
feet, a light unto our path. This book is a fire that is in
our bones. This book is a hammer that breaks
the rocks to pieces. This book is a sharp-edged sword
that pierces as far as the division of soul and spirit. This book
is milk that feeds the heart. It is meat that substantiates
our faith. No other book can tell me who
I am from whence I have come and where I am going. No other
book can tell me how to be right with God and how to live the
abundant life. And no other book can look beyond
the grave and tell me where I'm headed. No other book tells me
about myself and makes the right diagnosis of my spiritual condition
before God. We read other books and we just
yawn. We read this book and something
happens inside of us, and it is a miracle of the Holy Spirit
of God who wrote this book. Listen, I've read other books.
This book reads me. The Word of God transforms drunkards
into those who are sober. It transforms prostitutes into
those who are pure. It changes thieves into those
who are content. The prideful are made humble.
The broken are made whole. The weak are made strong. The
tearful are made courageous. Martin Luther said, this book
is alive. It speaks to me. It has feet. It runs after me. It has hands. It lays hold of me. Is this just another book? This book is the Word of God. It is inspired. It is inerrant.
It is infallible. It is sufficient. It is authoritative. It is immutable. It is unchanging. It is sovereign. It has mastery
over our lives. One anonymous writer has put
it this way, and I conclude, this book contains the mind of
God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners,
and the happiness of believers. Its doctrine is holy. Its precepts
are binding. Its histories are true. Its decisions
are immutable. Read it and be wise. Believe
it and be saved. Practice it and be holy. It contains
light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer
you. It is the traveler's map, the pilgrim's staff, the pilot's
compass, the soldier's sword, and the Christian's charter.
Christ is its grand subject. Our good is designed in the glory
of God its end. It should fill the memory, rule
the heart, guide the feet, read it slowly, read it frequently,
read it prayerfully. It is a mind of wealth and health
to the soul and a river of pleasure. It is given to you here in this
life. It will be opened at the judgment
and it is established forever. This book tells you that God
is holy and that you and I are sinful, and there is an enormous
gap that separates holy God from sinful man, that there is only
one way of salvation. There is only one way to be right
with this God, and it is through the obedient life and substitutionary
death of Jesus Christ. There is salvation in no other
name, for there is no other name under heaven given among men
whereby we must be saved. This Jesus said, I am the way
and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but
through Me. I trust that all of us here today
have responded to the message of this book, which says there
is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus,
who gave Himself a ransom for all, the testimony born at the
proper time. May you look to Christ and live. May you believe upon Christ and
be saved. And all that we know of the living
Word is found in this book, the written Word. Let us have great
confidence and great faith in what this book says to us. Let
us pray. Our Father, we thank You that
You have spoken, and that You have spoken in ways that even
a wayfaring man can understand. We thank You for the perpiscuity
and the clarity and the lucidness of this book. We thank You that
You have had it recorded by prophets of old and apostles, and that
it contains the message of Your glory and Your grace and Your
salvation that has been made known to us. Let us not build
upon the shifting sand of men's opinions and opinion polls of
this world. Let us build upon the solid rock
of divine revelation as revealed in this book. Father, would You
open the windows of heaven and pour out Your blessing upon these
many people who are gathered here today. May You make them
strong in their faith in the message of the Word of God. Father, we pray this in Jesus'
name, amen.