NOTE: The following transcript is of a sermon delivered by Rick Warren at his church. I used the following to deliver the Feb. 26 sermon at Little Wonders Community Church.
WHY CAN I TRUST THE BIBLE?
40 Days In The Word – Part 1
Rick Warren
January 21-22, 2012
“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 Tim. 3:16-17 (NIV)
“All of your commands can be trusted.” Ps.119:86 (NCV)
I CAN TRUST THE BIBLE BECAUSE…
1. ____________________________________________________________________
“The Word of the Lord is right and true.” Ps. 33:4 (NIV)
2. ____________________________________________________________________
“Every word of God is flawless.” Prov. 30:5 (NIV)
“The words of the Lord are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay and purified seven times!” Psalm 12:6 (NIV)
3. _____________________________________________________________________
“No prophecy ever originated from humans. Instead, it was given by the Holy Spirit as humans spoke under God's direction.” 2 Peter 1:21 (GW)
“But this is all happening to fulfill the words of the prophets as recorded in the Scriptures." Matt. 26:56 (NLT)
“The angel said to me, ‘These words are trustworthy and true. The Lord … sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place.’” Rev. 22:6 (NIV)
4. _____________________________________________________________________
“Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, Jesus explained to them what was said in ALL the Scriptures concerning himself.” Luke 24:27 (NIV)
“You search the Scriptures because you believe they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me!” John 5:39 (NLT)
5. _____________________________________________________________________
Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished!”
Matt. 5:18 (NIV)
6. _____________________________________________________________________
“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” Matt. 24:35 (NIV)
“The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.” 1 Peter 1:24-25 (NIV)
Jesus said, “If you continue in my Word, then you are my disciples indeed; And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free!” John 8:31-32 (KJV)
THE BIG QUESTION:
WHAT WILL BE THE AUTHORITY FOR MY LIFE?
“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good,
pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:2 (NIV)
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly!” Col. 3:16 (NIV)
WHY CAN I TRUST THE BIBLE?
40 Days In The Word – Part 1
Rick Warren
January 21-22, 2012
Good morning Saddleback! It’s good to see you all. I want to welcome you to 40 Days in the Word. We’re starting this week. We have been planning and preparing for this for about a year. I’m very excited about it. I want say hi not only to our eight Saddleback campuses joining us in all of our locations this morning, but also those of you who are joining us online; and there are about four thousand five hundred other churches here in America that are going through 40 Days in the Word with us. So I want you to welcome them, those forty-five hundred churches. Would you say hi to them too? We’re going to have a great time.
This is going to change your life. The next six weeks are going to change your life during the forty days. If you want to understand how it’s going to change and why it’s going to change I would encourage you to go online this week and watch the vision message that I did Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this last week. It gives the behind the scenes reasoning of why we do all of what we do.
The heart of 40 Days in the Word is going to be what we do in our small groups. We’re going to be looking at some material that I’m going to teach you in your small groups; how to unlock the Word of God for yourself, so that you’re not dependent upon me or anybody else. So you’re not having to say, well that’s just your interpretation! I’m going to teach you how to interpret the Word of God yourself, how to feed yourself from the Word of God; so obviously you’re going to want to be in a small group. If you’re not in one yet it’s still not too late. You can go out on the patio afterwards and sign up to be in a small group.
I’m very excited that already over one thousand people in our church have signed up to host new groups. One thousand new groups are starting! That’s fantastic. And I say to those of you who are new hosts who are joining the five thousand hosts of our existing groups, welcome aboard. We’re glad to have you a part of that. You’re not going to learn as much if you’re not in a small group because that’s the heart of what we’re doing for the next six weeks – in the Bible studies, the dvd studies, and the small group curriculum we’re going to be doing together.
The second component of 40 Days in the Word – I’ve already mentioned this to you – is a daily video devotional on the Word of God. I went out and I asked forty of the top Bible teachers in America to videotape a five minute devotional. Starting tomorrow morning they’re going to be available. What you need to do is go to 40ditw.com, or 40daysintheword.com and register. Give me either your email or your cell phone where you can get a text. It doesn’t matter to me which one you want to use. Then each day for the next forty days I’m going to text you or email you a link to that devotional day. Tomorrow morning I’m teaching the first devotional. So we kind of start with the bar low then we’re going raise it for the next forty days with these top Bible teachers.
Then the third part of it is the six weekend messages. I hope you’ll be here all six weeks. Not only will I be teaching these, but across America forty-five hundred other pastors will all be teaching the same text and the same topics from the Word of God.
The Bible is the most read book in history. It’s the bestselling book in history. And it is the most translated book in history. Why is it the Word of God? How do we know it is the Word of God? We’re going to look at that this weekend as we start.
2 Timothy 3, the Bible says this, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching and rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, [I’m going to explain that in another week] so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
We’re going to look at this verse again next week, but I want you to look at the phrase “All Scripture is God-breathed.” Circle that word “God-breathed.” That word in Greek is theopneustos. Theo, meaning God, pneustos, meaning breathed. The Bible is God-breathed.
What does that mean? Some of the translations translate the Scripture as inspired. But we’re not talking about an inspiring writer writing an inspiring book. We’re talking about God inspired this book. It is God breathed.
Right now you are listening to the breath of Rick Warren. You’re listening to my breath. Because what my voice is is breath coming up over my vocal cords, vibrating those vocal cords and coming out as sound. If I didn’t have any breath, I wouldn’t have any voice. So the breath of Rick Warren is the word of Rick Warren. It is the voice of Rick Warren.
And the Bible says that God’s Word is God’s very breath. It’s not just a good idea. It is God’s Word to us. As a result of that, Psalm 119 tells us this “All of your commands can be trusted.” Everything in the Bible can be trusted as true because it comes from God.
It’s one thing for the Bible to claim that it’s the Word of God. It’s one thing for the Bible to say it can be trusted. But how do I know really? How do I know this is the Word of God? It’s not just a bunch of fables, a bunch of stories that are put together.
That’s a valid, legitimate, important question that we need to ask before we ever start studying the Bible. How do I know I can trust it?
Time magazine thought this was such an important question it put it on its cover twice. Here was the cover of Time magazine that said, How true is the Bible? It’s a good question. And another cover of Time magazine: Is the Bible fact or fiction?
This morning we’re going to settle this issue. Because there are incredible proofs, evidences and facts that you need to know to help you make up your mind. So you’re not making up your mind based on what you’ve heard other people say, but what the Bible actually claims for itself and what history, science and all these other things teach us about the Bible.
We’re going to look today, to start off 40 Days in the Word, on inspiration – How do I know I can trust the Bible?
There are seven reasons. Pastor Tom is going to help me with these this weekend. But I want you to write down the first one.
- It is historically accurate.
The Bible is historically accurate. For that reason, I know I can trust the Bible. In other words, the Bible isn’t just doctrinally correct. It’s not just theologically correct. It’s not just accurate regarding morals and regarding ethics. It’s true history. Real people, real places, real time. It is true historically.
Why is that even important?
Because the Bible tells us this: God cannot lie. A lot of people ask this, is there anything God can’t do? Yeah, there are a lot of things God can’t do. God cannot deny himself. God cannot not be God. God cannot lie because God is truth.
In fact the Bible says this in Hebrews 6:18 “It is impossible for God to lie because God is truth.” The only reason the universe works is because God is a God of truth which means stuff is true all the time.
Can you imagine for instance if the law of gravity only worked on Tuesday and Thursday? It’d be pretty weird. But the laws of physics are true. God thought them up. He created them. The laws of mathematics are true. God created the laws of mathematics on which the universe runs. So God cannot lie.
If this book has one lie in it, it’s not a godly book. It’s not a book of God. Because God cannot lie. Psalm 33:4 says this “The Word of the Lord is right and true.” That’s not only true and right about salvation. It’s true and right about history.
Give a warm welcome to Pastor Tom as he talks to us about this.
Tom:
So how do we know that the Bible is historically accurate? By the same way you know that any other history is accurate. You just go by the test of good history.
For instance, one of the ways you test good history is, is it from eyewitness accounts? An historian would say is this written down by somebody who saw it or is it second hand or third hand, or is it a legend written down a hundred years later?
The Bible is primarily eyewitness accounts. That’s why it’s good history. Moses was there when the Red Sea split. Joshua was there when the walls of Jericho fell. The disciples of Jesus sat in the upper room and saw the resurrected Jesus appear and then they wrote down what happened and we read about it. Matthew was there, he wrote it down. John was there and he wrote it down. Peter was there and he told a guy by the name of Mark, and he wrote it down in the gospel of Mark. And Luke talked to all of them, including Jesus’ mother and heard about what had happened. So it’s eyewitness accounts of what had happened.
The other test of history by which we know the Bible is accurate is the extreme care with which the Bible was copied. You may have heard people say, “I’m sure it was right when it was first written. But it’s been passed down generation after generation. All these changes have come in…” Ever heard that? If you’ve heard that you know somebody just hasn’t taken the time to study it, to look into it. When you look into it you find out the extreme care with which the Bible was copied.
The Old Testament copyists, the scribes, when they would copy these scrolls from one to the other, they would copy like a Xerox copy. It had to be exact. They had this long list of rules they had to go by to make sure it was exact.
Rules like, when they had a scroll, they had a specified number of columns throughout it so it would always be the same. And the length of those columns always had to be from forty-eight to sixty in length and it always had to be exactly thirty letters wide so they could always check it out.
To make sure that it was always right, they had this rule that you had to copy letter by letter and not word by word. You know on your phone, when it does text prediction and it sends the wrong word to somebody that you didn’t want to send? They wanted to make sure that didn’t happen, so they could only copy letter by letter. And they went by these tests to make sure it was right after they copied it. They knew in a book how many letters of the alphabet were in each book. So for instance our letter “a”, they would know that there were 1,653 “a”s in this book. And if it had 1,654 when they counted it, they threw the scroll away and started over.
They were so exact, they knew the middle letter of the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch. They knew the middle letter of the whole Old Testament. And after they copied all of this, they would go to that middle letter and count forward and backward; and if it didn’t come out exactly the number it should, they would throw it away and they’d start over. That’s how exact they were.
There are a lot of ways we can see how they were exact. But one of the ways we can see that they were exact is through something called the Dead Sea Scrolls. We’ve all heard of those. What’s so significant about the Dead Sea Scrolls?
The Dead Sea Scrolls were written about a hundred years before Jesus. They have in them copies of all of the Old Testament books except Esther – all the other Old Testament books. When they found those scrolls, the earliest copes we had before that were from nine hundred years after Jesus, many of those books. So there’s this thousand years gap. All of a sudden we get to check out how much change came in in those thousand years.
You wonder how much? About five percent. That was almost all just the spelling of words and the spelling of the names. Over a thousand years, those copyists were proved to be right as they copied again and again and again and made it right. That’s another proof of the historical accuracy of the Bible.
Another proof is in archeology. You look at archeology and it proves again and again that the places and the people, all that the Bible talks about are true. It’s not fiction. You can go find these places. We’ve dug up these places. The Areopagus where Paul was, the theater in Athens where there was this riot… We’ve dug them up. We can see them today. The Pool of Siloam where the blind man was healed, portions of Herod’s Temple, all these places that are talked about in the Bible, they’ve dug them up. We can see them.
The book of Acts is all about historical accuracy. Luke, an historian as well as a doctor, he wrote the book of Acts. He talks about fifty-four cities, thirty-nine countries, and nine different islands – complete historical accuracy.
One of the great things about how archeology works with the Bible is how it’s again and again shown that actually the Bible is more accurate than our ideas of history. There have been many times when we’ve had an idea of what is historical and said the Bible must be wrong. And the Bible has proved itself to be right.
For instance, for a long time historians said, we’re not sure that guy named Solomon lived in the Old Testament and we’re certainly sure he didn’t have horses like it talked about. They only had camels back then. So that can’t be right. Until at Megiddo, they discovered one of Solomon’s chariot cities with thousands of stables for horses! So the Bible was proved right.
One of the greatest examples of that is an empire called the Hittites. There’s this whole empire called the Hittites talked about in the Bible that was not talked about anywhere else. So for centuries historians said the Bible just made it up. Until the early 1900s a professor by the name of Hugo Winkler discovered at Bogazkoy ten thousand clay tablets at the capital of the Hittites. Now everyone believes in the Hittites. In fact, during a break in the game today, you can go on Wikipedia and read about the Hittites.
Rick:
Not only is the Bible historically accurate, every time archeology backs it up. But it is scientifically accurate. That’s the second reason.
- The Bible is scientifically accurate.
There is so much misunderstanding and baloney about this in the world I want to spend a majority of time on this point; because people who think the Bible is scientifically inaccurate means, a, they’ve never studied the Bible and, b, they probably don’t know science. Because the truth is God always sets up the laws of science and he made sure that his Word does not contradict the laws of science.
The Bible was not given to be a scientific textbook, obviously. You don’t study the Bible to build a rocket. And the Bible doesn’t use scientific language.
But the Bible never, never, never gives bad science. Not once in over sixteen hundred years in which this book was written, does it give bad science. In fact it is always ahead of science. There are things in the Bible, the Bible says were true, that we’ve just discovered a hundred years ago, two hundred years ago, three hundred years ago.
Johannes Kepler, the famous mathematian, the famous astronomer said, “Science is simply thinking God’s thoughts after him.” In other words, God established the laws of physics and then we discover them. God established the laws of biology and we discover them. God established the laws of mathematics and we discover them. One of the reasons why we know the Bible can be trusted is because it’s scientifically accurate. And the reason it’s accurate is because the laws of the universe were invented by God. So he obviously understands them even in years past when we didn’t. Because for thousands of years we’ve misunderstood different things.
One thing about truth is it never changes. But one thing about science is it constantly changes. There’s nothing more worthless than an obsolete science book. I guarantee you that the science book you had in the third grade is not being used in the third grade today. A lot of things in that book are no longer believed or even taught. Nothing is more worthless than a five-year-old computer book. You can find them in any garage sale and nobody wants them, because things get out of date so fast. Science things that we thought we believed, we now know more about it. In fact in medical science it happens all the time.
I had to go to the doctor this week. He was talking to me about a particular condition and I said, “Then I assume we’re going to do this, this, and this.” And he goes, “No, we don’t believe that anymore. We don’t use that in medicine anymore.”
How many articles have you read that now say that something you thought was good for you now causes you cancer? Or stuff that they said is fine for a pregnant woman to take and then ten years later they go it’s not fine.
Science constantly changes. If you’ve ever been to Paris, you’ve probably gone to the Louvre, the famous art museum and library, world class library. In the Louvre library there’s one section that has three and a half miles of obsolete science books. Three and a half miles!
Because stuff they thought was scientifically fact fifteen hundred years ago was disproven a thousand years ago. What we thought a thousand years ago was disproven seven hundred fifty years ago. And what we’ve thought for twenty-five years is disproven ten years ago. And what we thought ten years ago is now changed to today.
Because stuff they thought was scientifically fact fifteen hundred years ago was disproven a thousand years ago. What we thought a thousand years ago was disproven seven hundred fifty years ago. And what we’ve thought for twenty-five years is disproven ten years ago. And what we thought ten years ago is now changed to today.
If you had been reading the Bible a thousand years ago or seven hundred years ago or five hundred years ago, what the Bible says would not have matched the science of that day because it wasn’t up to date.
God understands stuff even when we don’t and his rules don’t change.
The Bible says this in Psalm 148 “Let every created thing [that s the whole universe] give praise to the Lord, for he issued his command, [God set these rules in motion, the laws of thermodynamics, the laws of psychics] and they came into being. He established them forever and ever. And his orders will never be revoked.”
The second law of thermodynamics doesn’t work today and not work tomorrow. It always works because it was true and it was made by God. Truth doesn’t change.
In 1861 here was a very famous book that came out called Fifty-one Incontrovertible Proofs that the Bible is Scientifically Inaccurate. It’s a very famous book. Fifty-one incontrovertible scientific facts that we know, this is in 1861, that the Bible does not agree with and we know that the Bible is scientifically inaccurate. The only problem is today, a hundred fifty year later, you can’t find a single scientist on the planet who would agree with any one of those incontrovertible facts. They have all been disproven by science.
Truth does not change.
One of the proofs that we know that this book is not simply manmade, that this book came from God, that God directed men and women to talk and speak and write things down, and we know it’s the Word of God is what’s not in it. What’s not in it? Because if this were a human book, you would expect it to be filled with scientific facts of the prevailing day. But they’re not here. They’re not in the book.
For instance, for thousands and thousands of years, people believed that the earth was flat. It wasn’t until Copernicus and Galileo and Columbus that people realized the world’s not flat, it’s round. It’s a sphere. It’s a ball. So you would expect the Bible to say the earth is flat because it was in existence and being written during those thousands of years when everybody thought the earth was flat.
Not a single verse in the Bible says the earth is flat. Not at all. In fact it says the exact opposite. Two thousand six hundred years ago, God said this in the book of Isaiah 40:22 “God is enthroned above the sphere on the earth.” Two thousand six hundred years ago the Bible says the earth is round, the earth is a sphere, the earth is a globe. Long before anybody knew it. When that was written nobody believed it. But God said it and it was true, whether anybody believed it or not.
For thousands of years, people believed that the earth had to be held up by something. Depending on the culture you were in, you got certain different beliefs on what held it up.
For instance if you were Greek, in Greek culture you believed that the world was held up by a giant name Atlas. And we all know who Atlas is. Atlas held up the world. Part of the Bible is written in Greek. Atlas isn’t in the Bible. Why? Because it’s not true. So it’s not in the Bible. You would expect that during that time it would have somehow found its way into the Bible but it’s not there.
For thousands of years, the Hindus believed that the earth sat on the back of giant elephants. And that when the elephants moved, that’s what caused earthquakes. What did the elephants stand on? I’m not making this up. You can find this in any encyclopedia. They believed that the giant elephants stood on the back of a giant sea turtle. And the giant sea turtle stood on the back of a giant sea serpent who swam through a cosmic sea. That was the prevailing attitude in the world for hundreds if not thousands of years. It’s not in the Bible, even though the Bible was being written during this time. Why? Because the Bible leaves out the lies.
The Bible tells us that Moses was skilled and schooled in all of the wisdom of the ancient Egyptians. Because Moses was adopted as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. So he went to the best schools in ancient Egypt and was taught what was the prevailing science of that day.
The Egyptians were flat out brilliant. They built the pyramids; they were masters at architecture, at engineering, at astronomy. But the ancient Egyptians were dead wrong on what held up the earth. Because ancient Egypt believed that the earth was held up by five pillars. Certainly Moses was schooled in that science because he went to the best schools of the land as Pharaoh’s grandson. Yet not once in Scripture do you find that the earth is held up by five pillars. Why? Because it’s not true. So it didn’t make it into the Bible. The prevailing science of the day didn’t make it there.
In fact, the oldest known writing to man is likely the book of Job. It’s the oldest literature in existence today that we know about. Job was the first book written in the Bible. The books of the Bible are not in chronological order. Job is the oldest book. In Job 26:7 the oldest known literature in the human race says this “God stretches the sky over empty space and hangs the earth on nothing.” Who told Job? How did he know that? Everybody knows the earth is flat and it’s on the back of pillars. Why? Because the Bible only, always tells the truth.
I’m reinforcing this because it is sheer nonsense to say that the Bible is scientifically inaccurate. That means you just don’t know the Bible.
For instance, for years it was the accepted science that there were about a thousand stars in the universe. And that they could be counted. That the number of stars were finite. In fact a hundred fifty years B.C. a man named Hipparchus counted them and he wrote a very famous dissertation saying that there were one thousand twenty-two stars in the universe. That’s it. It was accepted for a long, long time there were only a thousand twenty-two stars in the universe.
But it doesn’t say that in the Bible. Three hundred years later, a hundred fifty years AD, a guy named Ptolemy does it again. And he comes out and says that guy Hipparchus is a nut. There are a thousand twenty-six. He found four more stars.
Shoot! They found planets this year. I read an article just a couple weeks ago where a guy said the number of stars in the universe is infinite. It is widely accepted today that there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on the planet earth. They cannot be counted.
We didn’t know that. Everybody accepted there were a thousand twenty-six stars. But two thousand six hundred years ago in the Bible God had said this in Jeremiah 33:22, “The number of stars are infinite.”
I guess Ptolemy didn’t read that one. Or anybody else for thousands of years. But it was there. Because it is the truth. It is always the truth.
I could go into so many different areas. Into biology and show you what the Bible says about biology. Into chemistry and show you what the Bible says about chemistry. Into medicine…
For many years people believed that too much blood in your body made you sick. For thousands of years this was the accepted custom and they did what was called bloodletting. Doctors would cut a sick person and bleed them thinking that was going to make them healthy. That was accepted science. Everybody knew that was true. It wasn’t, but everybody knew that was true science. It was because of Hypocrites; and for 2000 years since Hypocrites they believed that all illness came from four bodily fluids – yellow bile, black bile, red blood or blue phlegm. Those four fluids also controlled your temperament.
Nobody believes that anymore. But for two thousand years that was scientific proof. So people thought you had to bleed people to get the bad stuff out. Many people don’t know that our first president George Washington was killed by doctors bleeding him to death. That’s how he died. George Washington had a heart problem. Doctors didn’t know what to do so they did the common science of the day and they bled George Washington. He didn’t get well so a few days later they bled him again, cut and bled him. He didn’t get well so a few days later they bled him a third time and he died from blood loss.
Today we know you give people blood when they’re sick. We do the exact opposite of what they did for thousands of years. You give people blood because we know the life source is in the blood. And good blood makes people feel better. That that’s where the life comes from. It’s called a transfusion. We give people blood today. But they didn’t know that for thousands of years.
But the Bible knew it. In fact back in Leviticus 17, thousands and thousands of years ago, Leviticus 17:11, God said this “The life of every creature is in its blood.”
How did Moses know that? We didn’t even know that blood circulates until around 1650. It wasn’t until the seventeenth century when William Harvey discovered that blood circulates. For thousands of years nobody even thought it circulated. Everybody bought into Galen who was a Greek doctor. For two thousand years they accepted his idea basically that the heart was the source of heat. But nobody knew it actually pumped blood. Yet thousands of years ago the Bible says, “The life of every creature is in its blood.” They should have just read the Bible!
During the Middle Ages there was the bubonic plague. The bubonic plague killed one fourth of Europe. One out of every four people died during the black plague. Because we didn’t understand germs. We didn’t understand contagion. And we didn’t understand infection. And we didn’t understand quarantining people. So they had sick people with the bubonic plague who were contagious sleeping right next to healthy people; and people just kept dying because we didn’t know about germs and contagion. So it became an epidemic and then a pandemic. They should have read the Bible.
Because thousands and thousands of years before the bubonic plague God had said in Leviticus 13:4 “Put an infected person in quarantine for seven days.” That’s thousands of years before we even knew what germs were. God was saying here’s how you take care of people who get infected with an illness. You put them outside the camp for seven days. If they’re still sick, he says in the next verse, keep them out there for another seven days. Nobody understood quarantine because nobody understood germs. But God was right.
I could go on and on. The Bible is always scientifically accurate. It is always ahead of science.
The Bible says this in Proverbs 30:5 “Every word of God is flawless.” Mine aren’t, yours aren’t, human beings’ aren’t. But every word of God is flawless. It’s not only flawless, Psalm 12:6 says “The words of the Lord are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay and purified seven times!”
My wife Kay wishes I’d speak like that. Because often my mouth gets in gear before my mind gets engaged and I say words that are flawed. But God’s Word is flawless.
We know we can trust the Bible because it is historically accurate, archeology confirms it. And it is scientifically accurate.
- We know we can trust the Bible because it is prophetically accurate.
What does that mean? It means that the predictions in the Bible always come true.
The Bible is filled with literally thousands and thousands of prophecies where God says, This is going to happen at such and such a time, in such and such a way. Over all of the centuries thousands of these prophecies have already been fulfilled, every one of them exactly as God said. And some of them are still yet to be fulfilled.
There are over three hundred prophecies in the Bible about Jesus, the Messiah, up to a thousand years before he was born. And over a thousand year period, three hundred prophecies said things like, This is when he’ll be born, this is where he’ll be born, this is how he’ll be born. You can’t control that if you’re trying to make yourself the Messiah. You didn’t choose where you
were born. This is how he’ll die, the manner he’ll die and what he’ll die from. Over three hundred prophecies.
What are the odds of me making three hundred predictions about you and every one of them coming true? The odds are so astronomical you couldn’t write that number down. It takes more faith to believe it was all just a coincidence than to believe that God planned it. It takes enormous faith to believe it’s all just random, that it all just happened, without a designer, without a creator. A thousand years before Jesus came and died on the cross, David in one of his psalms describes what death by crucifixion is like. He didn’t use the word “crucifixion” because nobody knew that word. But a thousand years before the Romans are even thinking of crucifixion, David describes what the death of crucifixion was like. How did he know that? Only God could have told him.
The Bible says in 2 Peter “No prophecy ever originated from humans. [In other words guys just didn’t sit around and say, Let’s think this one up, and write it down.] Instead, it was given by the Holy Spirit as humans spoke under God’s direction.”
During Bible times nobody wanted to be a prophet. You know why? Because the law was this in Israel: A prophet of God had to be correct one hundred percent of the time. If you were wrong just once, then you were considered a false prophet and you would be put to death. So nobody wanted to be a prophet because you had to be accurate one hundred percent of the time.
There are a lot of people claiming to be prophets today. There are prophets, false prophets, non profits. By the way, let me just give you a little tip: don’t ever trust a psychic who asks for your name. If you’re so psychic you shouldn’t have to ask for my credit card; you should just know it. Don’t say I know all about you. Then tell me what my credit card number is, then I’ll believe you.
It’s prophetically accurate. Jesus said this in Matthew 26, “But this is all happening to fulfill the words of the prophets as recorded in Scriptures.” Jesus said it’s all coming true just like God predicted.
Revelation 22, John said “The angel said to me, ‘These words are trustworthy [you can trust them] and they’re true. [why? Because they’re from God] The Lord… sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place.” It is prophetically accurate. And the odds of all these prophecies happening just the way they did, over thousands of years, are astronomical.
- The fourth reason I know that the Bible is trustworthy is it is thematically unified.
It is thematically unified. What do I mean by that? It has the theme through the entire book from cover to cover, from Genesis to Revelation. It is the same theme of redemption from Genesis to the end. Jesus is the star. It is a thematically unified book.
What’s the big deal about that? I know a lot of books that carry the same theme from beginning to end. Written over sixteen hundred years, by forty different authors? I don’t think so.
This book was written over one thousand six hundred years, from the first book to the last, by forty different authors, on three different continents, in three different languages, and they didn’t know about each other. How do you think they all got the same story? It wasn’t even collected in one book until a thousand years later after they’d died, in the Old Testament. How do you think they knew that?
It’d be one thing if one person wrote this book. The Quran was written by one person – Mohammed. The Analects of Confucius are written by Confucius. The writings of Buddha are written by Buddha. You would expect them to be uniform.
The Bible was written by forty different people, in every age and stage of life, as I said on three different continents, in three different languages, over one thousand six hundred years. And they got the same story. This book was written by poets and prophets. It’s written by princes and kings. It’s written by sailors and soldiers. This book was written by attorneys and a doctor, an M.D. It’s written by kings. It’s written by prisoners. It’s written by common people. It’s written by prophets. All kinds of people wrote the Bible. And it was written in all kinds of locations. Some of the Bible was written in a cave. Some of the Bible was written on ships. Some of it was written in homes. Some of it was written in palaces. Some of it was written in prison. And they all come up with the same theme. You’ve got to be kidding me! It has the same theme of redemption from cover to cover, over one thousand six hundred years. You couldn’t get a more diverse group – fishermen and tax collectors and scholars and businessmen, and over a period of almost two thousand years, coming up with the same story.
Let me give you an example of this. If I were to take fifty pieces of paper right now [there are sixty-six books in the Bible. But let’s just say I were take fifty pieces of paper] and I were to hand them out to people today and I said to each of you, “I want you to tear this piece of paper anyway you want to, in any shape you want to. I’m not going to tell you how I’m going to use it. I just want you to tear it in a shape.” So you tear it up in a shape. Then I take the fifty pieces back.
What would be the odds that all fifty of those pieces of paper would form a perfect map of the United States of America and the fifty states? You wouldn’t believe it. You’d say it’s a trick. The odds are too astronomical to just accept that they all unify and fit together.
But the Bible is more than that. It was many places, many people and many centuries and yet it all fits together with the same unified theme.
Jesus said in Luke 24 “Beginning with Moses [that’s the first five books of the Bible – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy – the first five books of the Bible written by Moses] and all the Prophets, [that’s the rest of the Old Testament] Jesus explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”
Did you get that? Most people think the New Testament is about Jesus and the Old Testament is about Israel. Wrong! The New Testament wasn’t even written when Jesus said that. He’s talking about the Old Testament. It says he went through all the Scriptures and showed what it said about him. The story is about Jesus from beginning to end. The pictures, the metaphors, the analogies, the illusions – everything in Scripture from beginning to end is about God’s plan to redeem people and build a family for eternity. It all began with him. The star of the story is Jesus. You can see him in every book.
John 5:39 Jesus says “You search the Scriptures because you believe they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me!” Remember: the New Testament hasn’t been written when he said this. He’s talking about the Old Testament. All the Scriptures point to me.
While we’re talking about Jesus, Tom is going to come and talk to you about the fifth way that we know that we can trust that the Bible is the Word of God.
Tom:
- The fifth way I can trust the Bible is because it’s confirmed by Jesus.
Jesus trusted the Bible. You may have heard somebody say, you may have even thought, “I trust what Jesus said, I’m just not so sure about those other guys.” Here’s the challenge to that: Jesus trusted the rest of the Bible. So if I trust Jesus then I have to trust the rest of the Bible, because Jesus trusted the rest of the Bible. Jesus proclaimed the Bible as a unique book above all others.
Matthew 5:18, Jesus said, “I’ll tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished!”
Jesus looks at the Bible and says, it’s going to last until the end of time. It’s going to accomplish what God wants to accomplish in this world. In John 10:35 Jesus said “Scripture is always true.” Jesus proclaimed the truth of the Bible. And when Jesus talks about the truth of the Bible, I’ve got to listen to that in my own life. When Jesus says that every sentence and word of the Bible is true, that’s why I believe that every sentence and word of the Bible is true. When you read how Jesus talked about the Bible with people, he would often base his argument about the truth of the Bible on a single sentence or even a single word from the Bible. So he believed every single sentence, every single word. So why wouldn’t I, because I trust Jesus?
When Jesus talks about the Bible, he doesn’t just talk about poetry and history. He talks about it as something that is life changing. Luke 11:28 here’s what Jesus had to say: “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” Do it. Not just read it like poetry. But obey it because God wrote it to our lives.
Jesus, as he talked about the Bible, he talked about it as a real book, talking about real people, and real places by a real God who’s really at work in our lives.
Just a real quick list of some of the people and places that the Bible talks about as real and Jesus also confirmed as he taught that were real.
Jesus believed in the prophets. He talked about all the prophets being real. He talked about Daniel being real. Jesus believed in Noah, everything that happened with the flood. He talks about that. He believed in Adam and Eve. Jesus believed in the tragedy of Sodom and Gomorrah and what happened there. He taught on that. He believed in Jonah and what happened there.
Here’s the interesting thing, particularly of those last four – Noah, Adam and Eve, Sodom and Gomorrah and Jonah. Those are the most disputed stories in the Bible by people who say, “It’s just a bunch of fables. They’re good stories, good moral stories, but they didn’t really happen.” Jesus believed they really happened. In fact he used some of these as illustrations of what was going to happen in his resurrection. If Jesus really believed in Jonah, I believe it happened. I don’t know how God created a fish who could swallow a guy, but he did. I trust in it because Jesus trusted in it.
It sort of makes me smile when two thousand or three or four thousand years later we look back at the Bible and go, “I’m going to trust that part and I’m not going to trust that part. Based on my subjective or emotional feelings, I’m going to accept that part and I’m not going to accept that part.” Jesus trusted it. Jesus trusted it, so I trust it.
Augustine said, If you believe in the Bible what you like, and you don’t believe what you don’t like, it’s not the Bible you trust, but yourself. I don’t know about you, but I’ve found that my emotions, my opinions are not always trustworthy. I trust Jesus. He trusted the Bible. That’s one of the main reasons why I trust the Bible.
Rick:
The sixth reason that you can trust the Bible as the absolute authoritative Word of God, God- breathed, theopneustos, is that…
- It has survived all attacks.
That makes it an unusual book. The Bible is the most despised book, the most derided, the most denied, the most disputed, the most dissected, the most debated, the most outlawed, the most destroyed, the most banned book ever in history. Millions of people have died because they refused to give up their Bible. People were killed. It was illegal. It’s still illegal in some countries. Today if you take a Bible into Korea you can get killed for it. North Korea, not South Korea. South Korea is a Bible country. But North Korea, if you take a Bible in you can get arrested and thrown in jail and you can be killed for it.
This Bible has been under attack for century after century after century by everything you can imagine. Yet it is still the most read book in the world, the mot published book in the world, the most translated book in the world, the bestselling book in the world and it is still making a difference in people’s lives.
The Bible is the greatest source, single source of music. The Bible is the greatest single source of art. And the Bible is the greatest single source of architecture throughout history. If you take the Bible out of culture, you have basically destroyed most of the major music, most of the major art, and most of the major architecture for almost two thousand years. It is the source of our culture.
You speak the English language you do because of the King James Version of the Bible. If the King James Version of the Bible had not been written, you would not be speaking the way you speak right now. About four hundred years ago they published the King James Version and the words you use today, most of those words – many of them – most of those words came out of that book, out of the Bible.
Jesus said this in Mathew 24:35 “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” The only thing on this planet that’s going to last is the Word of God. It’s eternal. Everything else is going to burn up, but the Word of God is eternal, because truth is lasting forever.
Voltaire, the famous French philosopher, was a brilliant man, a flat-out brilliant man. He was an atheist but he was flat-out brilliant. He wrote a number of tracts deriding the Bible. Voltaire made a very famous statement in which he said “One hundred years from today the Bible will be a forgotten book.”
Everybody’s forgotten that quote! After Voltaire died, for nearly one hundred years, his homestead was used as the book depository for the French Bible Society. They sold Bibles out of his house. It’s now a museum. People have forgotten Voltaire. Nobody forgets the Bible. “Heaven and earth will pass away; my word will never pass away.”
1 Peter 1:24-25 “The grass withers and the flowers fall, [in other words temporary stuff just wilts. Today’s news is worthless tomorrow. You don’t read last week’s newspaper. It isn’t worth anything. The temporary stuff doesn’t last. The grass withers and the flowers fade…] but the word of God stands forever.”
And the truth will always be the truth. Whether I believe it or not, it’s the truth. I could say I believe the moon is made of cheese. We know and it’s proven that the moon is made of rock. We’ve brought rocks back from the moon. And no matter how much I say I believe the moon is made of cheese, it doesn’t change it. It’s still made out of rock.
I told you I once saw a bumper sticker that said, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” That’s a dumb way to say it. Because really what you ought to say is “God said it, that settles it, whether I believe it or not.” Because whether I believe it or not doesn’t change it at all. The fact is there are a lot of things that are true; I don’t want them to be true. So I can say, I don’t believe it, because I don’t want it to be true. It doesn’t make it not true.
I don’t want that to be called immoral. It doesn’t matter whether I want it or not. What God says is moral is moral and what God says is not moral is not moral. It’s not my choice. He’s God and you’re not.
I could say to you, I don’t believe in the law of gravity. It’s fine for you and you may be a religious person but I don’t need the law of gravity. So let’s all be copasetic. What’s good for you is good for you. What’s good for me is good for me. I don’t believe the law of gravity.
So you and I go up on the Empire State Building. I say, I don’t believe the law of gravity applies to me because I don’t believe in it. So I jump off the Empire State Building. As I’m floating down at a rather rapid speed, about the hundredth floor down a guy looks out the window and says, “How’s it going, Rick?” And I say, “So far, so good.”
And that’s the way most people are living their lives. God gives you the freedom to totally thumb your nose to him and rebel against him your entire life. But that’s not the end of the story. You can run from God the rest of your life, but then you can’t run anymore. Sorry. You’re going to come face to face with God one day whether you believe in him or not. And all of the “I don’t believe in him!” isn’t going to stop that event from happening.
The truth is at some point my face is going to hit the ground. And the truth is you don’t break God’s laws; they break you. When I ignore what God says in his inspired, inerrant, infallible Word, when I ignore what it says and say I don’t like that part, I only hurt myself. I don’t hurt God. I only hurt myself.
The seventh one is the dearest one to me. It’s the most subjective one but it is the one I have seen personally the most.
- It has transforming power.
It has transforming power. Nothing can change the lives of people like the Bible. Your life has been changed by it. Tens of thousands of lives have been changed. I’ve seen flat out drunks, irresponsible addicts, get their life clean and sober because they start reading the Bible. I have seen the most self-centered, narcissistic, it’s-all-about-me men who abuse and misuse women and think only of themselves and would rip off anybody simply to make themselves feel better, read the Bible, have their lives transformed and become godly husbands, wonderful dads and upstanding citizens in the community.
If I thought that you could change human behavior by laws, I would become a politician. But I have zero faith in politics to actually change the greatest problems on the planet. Because you can make all the laws in the world, it isn’t going to change the heart. You can make a law that outlaws racism and bigotry, but no law is going to turn a bigot into lover. God’s got to do that. God’s got to change the heart. I’ve invested my life in the heart changing business and I’ve seen it happen thousands of times because of this book. It changes people you would never imagine it could change.
Jesus said it like this in John 8:31-32, “If you continue in my Word, then you are my disciples indeed; And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free!”
I want you to be free. You know what the most amazing thing is; secular universities all around the world have the second half of this verse printed in stone on buildings in universities all over: The truth will make you free. Then they ignore God and ignore the Bible. They forget the first part: “If you continue in my Word, you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” Not just if you go out and make up your own opinion, you watch Oprah and write an article, that will set you free. “If you continue in my Word, you will know the truth…” Because this book never lies to you. Even when I don’t like what it says, even when I disagree with it, even when it hurts, even when it’s uncomfortable, it will always tell me the truth. That’s why it’s called Holy Bible!
Do you believe everything you read online? No. Do you believe everything you watch on tv? No. Do you believe everything you read in the newspaper and in People magazine? No. Do you believe everything that is written about me? Yes… Don’t!
Why do we spend more time reading and watching stuff we know is a lie than reading what we know is the truth?
The fundamental question, the most important question you’re going to ask yourself in life is, what is going to be the final authority for my life? You need to decide that. I recommend you decide today. Is it going to be the Word? Or is it going to be the world? Am I going to listen to what God says is true? Or am I going to listen to public opinion or my own set of feelings? Who’s going to be the authority in my life? God or me?
Because when I say, I don’t really accept this book, it’s not that I can’t; it’s that I don’t want to accept it. And the reason I don’t want to accept it as my authority is because I want to be boss. I want to be Lord. I want to be God of my own life and I don’t want God telling me what’s moral and immoral, what’s right and what’s wrong. I want to do it my way. I want to be Lord.
So let me ask you, how’s that working for you? Is that solving all your problems? Has all your stress and worry and irritations vanished because you’re God? If you’re God and you’re in charge, how’s that working in your life? Everything turning out the way you want it? I don’t think so. To rebel against God is flat out stupidity. You’re not going to win that battle. Your arms are too short to box with God.
So the big question is, what’s going to be the authority of my life? Why is the inerrancy and infallibility and the flawlessness of God’s Word so important?
Because, friends, if this book is not true, you’re in a heap of trouble. And so am I. Because my salvation depends on this book being right. And so does yours. This is the book that tells you your life is not an accident. Science doesn’t tell you that. This is the book that tells you there is an overarching purpose for your life. Science doesn’t tell you that. This is the book that says God made you to love you. This is the book that says you can be forgiven. This is the book that says your past can be forgiven, you can have a purpose for living, you can have a home in heaven. This is the book that says no matter what problem you go through, God can use it for good in your life. This is the book that says there is a reason for hope.
If this book is a lie, you’re in a heap of trouble! Because this is the book that tells you how to get to heaven.
The Bible says in Romans 12 “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, [it’s talking about the world’s way of thinking, the world’s worldview, the opinions and the attitudes of the world] but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. [You’re either a conformist or you’re a transformist. You’re either conformed to the way the world thinks or you’re transformed by the truth.] Then you will be able to test [you’ll be able to know. That’s how you make good decisions] and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
God’s plan for your life is good. God’s plan for your life is pleasing. And God’s plan for your life is perfect. But you’re only going to know it through the perfect Word of God.
Prayer:
I want you to settle this issue today, to accept the Bible as the flawless Word, as the final authority for your life. Because if you don’t, then you’re basically making it on your own opinions. You’re setting yourself up as the authority. I would ask you again, how’s that working? How’s that working in your life? Do you find it pretty effective?
I would pray this prayer right now. Say it in your mind: Dear God, from this day forward I will accept the Bible as your flawless Word to me. I will make it the final authority for my life. Not what television says, not what popularity says, not what I feel like doing or what I think sounds best. I’m going to make the Bible the final authority for my life, even when I don’t understand it, even when it’s not popular, even when it’s not easy, or even when I don’t like it. You are God and I’m not. Thank you, God, for loving me enough to speak to me through your Word. Thank you that you are not silent. Thank you that you spoke through about forty men and women, over sixteen hundred years, on three continents, in three languages, to tell me one story. That you wanted me in your family and you wanted me to know you and that you made me for a purpose. Thank you that you’re not silent. I want to love your Word, I want to learn your Word, and I want to live your Word. Use Forty Days in my life to set me on the right path. In your name I pray. Amen.
Now do you see why we’re going to do 40 Days in the Word? Three things you need to do…
Number one, if you’re not in a group, you need to run to the patio in just a minute and sign up to get in a group. If you want to start a group we’ll help you do that. You can fill out one of the cards, the registration cards in your program and take it out to the patio.
Second, you need to go online to 40ditw.com and sign up for the daily devotions. The first one starts tomorrow morning. It’s a video that I do and I’m going to explain it to you.
I’m going to ask everybody who is going to be a host, I want to congratulate you in advance. We have over five thousand small groups and a thousand new groups. If you’re going to be a host during Forty Days I want you to stand up and stay standing for a minute so we can applaud you. Thank you guys!
Stay standing. I want you to look around at these people. Do these people look super spiritual? No. They just look normal. Anybody could be a host. You can go outside and say, I’ll be a host. Because you hosts are going to need to get this box filled with all the stuff, I’m dismissing you from class early. You can leave right now and go on out because I want you to get first shot at the table to pick up your materials for your small groups. The rest of you, look up here on the screen. Colossians 3:16 is our memory verse for this week. Tomorrow morning I’m going to teach on this in the first devotional. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” Remember: To memorize, you always say the reference before and at the end and you say it aloud. We learn orally. So let’s say this verse aloud.
Colossians 3:16 “Let the word of Christ dwell in your richly.” And where is it? Colossians 3:16. By the way what is Colossians 3:16? “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” And where is that verse found? Colossians 3:16.
I want you to memorize that verse this week. Take sixty seconds right now to think about it. Look at this, I’m going to ask our singers to come on out. We’ll sing and we’ll give our offerings. But while we’re doing that I want you to look at this and memorize this verse.
