Seven Reasons Why I Believe The Bible

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Why I Believe the Bible

KGD-27 NR3-07 TAB-30 WFM-43 XAS-09

020224PM

Transcript

We’re going to start what I’ve entitled the strategic grasp of the Bible. Trying to see and get our hands, and more than our hands, our hearts around God’s word. A strategic grasp of the Bible involves us getting to know what the Bible’s about, what it’s teaching. Our new study is, and someone asked me this morning, it’s one of the greatest studies that we could ever share, because this is the revelation of God to us of His word.

A strategic grasp of the Bible is answering a first question. And that first question we’re going to answer tonight is, do you really believe God’s word? What I think is amazing is, over the years as I was privileged to travel and to live in different parts of the world. To live behind the Iron Curtain, and in mainland China, and stay and serve with missionaries in South America and Europe and everywhere else, in Northern Africa and the Middle East, it was the fact that those people that got saved really believed the Bible. They really believe the Bible. I stood in the living room of a man in Meknes, Morocco, a believer. One of the only five or six in the whole town of Meknes, which is a city of several hundred thousand in Morocco. And that man let us put into his living room five thousand Arabic Bibles. If he’d have been caught with one, he would have been imprisoned. And perhaps executed. He allowed us, our team, to carry up 5,000. Because when he got saved, he really believed God’s word. And the question tonight is, do you and I really believe?

Why is it important to believe God’s word? First of all, this evening, as we begin our new study called the Strategic Grasp of the Bible, this is one of the greatest studies we could ever share. Why? The reason why is this. Because the Bible is the revelation of all that God wants us to know about everything we need to know. Now, think about that. It’s everything that God wants us to know about what God wants us to know. All we need to know. Now, people are always so concerned about the parts the Bible doesn’t explain. Deuteronomy 29:29 explains that to us. It says, the secret things belong to God. I call that the back office. How God reconciles all this. How the “whosoever will,” matches with, “chosen in Him.” He said you’re not supposed to reconcile that. The Bible rather gives us everything God wants us to know about everything we need to know. And so, we should believe and act on what we know, and what He’s revealed. If He hasn’t revealed it, either it’s a secret, Deuteronomy 29:29, or it’s not important. We need to not work on the white spaces. Most people spend their time when they really get into Bible study, working on the white spaces. That’s the part that isn’t in there. We’re getting the black part, the type, the words, that’s what He wants us to know.

The more of God’s word that you have a grasp on, the more that dwells richly, and the more that’s in your mind, in your heart, that is in your mouth coming out, the more you know about all that really matters in life. See, that’s why we need a grasp on the Bible. It filters out what is important. You don’t have to have a lot of rules. It changes your appetite. It changes your direction, your heart’s desire. In fact, a strategic grasp of the Bible means that God has a strategic grasp on our heart.

Also, another reason why, if we would turn, you can turn with me to John 17:17 in your Bible, because this is our first point. I don’t want you to miss it, okay? The first reason why we need a strategic grasp of the Bible is in this verse, and this is what the verse says. Sanctify them through Thy truth. Thy word is truth. God says the only way for you and I to be sanctified, hagiazomai made holy, sanctified, made holy is through the truth of the word of God, but I like the ending of that verse, Thy word is truth. So, the book that you hold in your hand, you need to be convinced that it’s really true. So, that’s why we want to grasp this Bible.

I hope it’s because you believe that the book is truly God’s word. That is really the only place that any study can start. If you have doubts about whether this is really God’s word, you’re not going to get very far, because every time you come to something that your psychology professor said different than God, or your science professor says different than God, or your favorite political, or entertainment, or whatever person says is different than God, then you’ll be in a little ambivalence there, you’re torn, you’re confused. So, you have to start with the John 17:17 mentality. Thy word is truth.

So, strategic grasp begins with a settled conviction of the truthfulness. In other words, that all 66 books, all 1,100 and let’s see, 939 and 250, all 1,189 chapters of the Bible are inspired and supernaturally engineered by God. That the Bible says what it means, and in every chapter, in every account, in every historical passage, in every scientific passage of God’s word, it means what it says, because it’s true.

There’s seven reasons why God’s word Is true. In fact, I’m going to summarize tonight, in the next two or three minutes. Way back, I think about 1996, I entitled The Book You Can Trust. It’s six hours. I went through my personal convictions about the Bible. Here they are for you, the seven reasons.

Number one, I believe the Bible is truly God’s word because, and this is the premier reason… In fact, I don’t need anybody to try and figure out whether Jonah was a literal account and whether or not all those miracles happened in the Exodus, and whether or not the angel of the Lord really killed all those Assyrians, the 185,000 outside the wall. And Hezekiah said, I don’t need anybody to archaeologically verify that. Do you know why? Jesus believed it. Jesus said the Holy Scriptures, He said the 39 books of the Old Testament are the Scriptures of God. That means Jesus believed the Bible. That’s good enough for me. So, you know what? If you’re all concerned about the historicity of Jonah or Daniel, or whether those prophecies can really be true, it’s settled if you simply understand Jesus believed it’s true.

Now, if you don’t believe Jesus, then you have a far bigger problem whether the Bible is true, right? You have an eternal problem. And see, that’s why, for us, we need to just trust Christ.

Okay, what did He say? Our Lord Jesus Christ believed in the verbal inspiration of the Bible. That means, verbal means, every word is inspired by the Holy Spirit. Jesus said that, Matthew 5:18. He said that these scriptures are from God. They cannot be broken. They are God’s word. This means that there are no errors, none, in science, in the Bible. Anything the Bible says scientifically that science doesn’t agree with, science is wrong. You want to know how I know that? I collect old books. You ought to read a biology book from 50 or 100 or 200 years ago. And look at what they affirmed contrary to the Bible. Now they’re coming right in line with God’s word, more all the time.

Not only science, history. For years there was such laughter and scorning in the academic community about the Hittite nation. Remember Uriah the Hittite, who David killed to get his wife? Historians, archaeologists said there’s no Hittite Empire. The Bible talks about a huge Hittite Empire. In the last century they found it. They found metallurgy, mining, smelting, alloy making of an unprecedented sphere that those people had in scale. They were exporting things all the way to the Far East, all the way to the farthest western coast of Europe. The Hittite Empire, that nobody knew about except people who believe the Bible. So history, no errors in history, or in moral areas.

You know the Bible has always affirmed that homosexuality, male and female homosexuality, is always immoral. Now, our culture doesn’t agree with that, but let God be true, and let them all be liars. This is what we call inerrancy. No errors, verbal inspiration, every word is true, inerrancy. No errors in science, in history, or moral areas. Jesus thus affirmed, look at this, the historical reliability of the scriptures. Now, how did He do that?

He spoke of Adam and Eve as if they were the first two human beings. He talked about them like He made them, and He did. And He talked about marriage, and His whole basis of marriage is based on the fact that God, from the beginning, made them male and female and joined them together. And Jesus spoke of Adam and Eve as the first two human beings in Matthew 19, verses 4 and 5.

Jesus testified of the reality of Noah and the global catastrophe called the flood. Jesus believed in a global flood. He said there’s going to be a global destruction of this planet in the Tribulation. It’s going to be a n all seven continent decimation of about one half to two thirds of all living people on this planet. So, between 3.1 billion or 4.0 something billion will be destroyed during that time horribly. He said, just like that’s going to be a global catastrophe, Noah was saved through the global catastrophe of the flood.

So, Jesus was not only a creationist, not an evolutionist, a creationist. He believed in the initial instantaneous creation from the dust of the ground of the first man, the breathing into him the breath of life. Then, God put him to sleep and took out one of his ribs and fashioned out of the man a woman. That’s why the Hebrew words ‘îš means man, ‘iššâ means woman, from man. So, woman is from man. So, God made man, male and female, because man is what He created, Adam. And from that He made the male and female. He pulled a part out, a rib out, and made Eve. Jesus also spoke of Abraham as a person who lived and who knew Him. He said Abraham was rejoiced to see My day. He liked the time that he got to interact with Me. And so, he talked about Him as a person who lived and knew Him as God the Son, in John 8:56.

I remember when I was on the radio when I first got here with John Erling and he said he had, Dr. So and so from some liberal church that doesn’t believe the Bible at all. And he said, in his, that voice they always use… he says of course we know that no one in the Bible is historic before David, and we have our doubts about David. So, they had me on the other line. And I said, actually, Jesus believed that Abraham and Moses… and I went right down the line, Adam and Eve, and Noah, and everybody else was true. And Erling says, how do you know that? I said, because it says in the Bible. He says, it does? Most people don’t know what the Bible says. And so, we need to believe the Bible because Jesus believed the Bible. Jesus even affirmed the reliability of the writings and lives of the major Old Testament personages.

He talks about Abel. The Cain and Abel story is not just a story for the storybooks. It really happened. And Abel was slain by his brother Cain because of his hard heart, and he was a murderer. In fact, Cain is the only person mentioned in 1 John. Which is significant, which is about the evil one and the devil and all that. And so, he was of the evil one. Moses in the burning bush. David. He affirms Elijah. Daniel, one of the most disputed books in the Old Testament. Why is Daniel so disliked? Because Daniel wrote such a graphic history of the world in the 6th century B. C. that when a copy of the scroll of Daniel was shown to Alexander the Great, 300 years later, Alexander spared the city of Jerusalem because he saw himself vividly described in the scroll of Daniel, which was three centuries old when he got it. It’s amazing. And Jesus’ affirmation of Daniel makes us rejoice in the veracity of the scripture, but it makes the liberals angry because it shows divine… and when I say divine, I mean extraterrestrial.

There’s so much science fiction floating around nowadays that people don’t understand when you say divine, you’re talking about, not from this world. The Bible comes not from the Earth. It comes from beyond the sphere of the Earth. It comes from God, who is beyond the Earth. He is beyond His creation. He is distinct from it. And an extraterrestrial book is in our possession, and that is the Bible.

And also, Jesus affirmed Jonah, the great fish, that whole not very liked by liberals story. So that’s the first reason.

The second reason why I believe God’s word is true is I believe the Bible is truly God’s word because all the writers of the Bible said so. All of them. They said this is God’s word. And what I mean by that is, there’s a harmony of conviction by the 40 plus authors that God spoke through them. Thousands of times. Thousands. They say, and the Lord said, and thus says the Lord, and the Lord said, and the Lord told me, and the Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and the Lord told me, and the Lord spoke, and the Lord said, and the Lord directed, and they just, thousands of times, say that it wasn’t them. They were totally convinced that they were sharing words that were not originating with them.

In fact, one of the classic statements is by David at the end of his life. David, who wrote so much of the word of God. He wrote about half of the Psalms. He was a mighty, mighty leader in the worship of God. This is what he said. He said, the Spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and His word was in my tongue. What he said is, those aren’t my words. Those weren’t cute little, the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want, that I thought up, that I was sitting out rhyming words on the hillside one day. He said, I’m utterly convicted and convinced, and I’m aware that the Bible is truly God’s word because it came from beyond me, from beyond my ability, from beyond my mind. It came through the instrumentality of individuals, 40 plus men, but it wasn’t from their imagination. It was a theopneustos, God breathed out through them. Pheromenoi, God led them along, as the two New Testament words are. So that’s the second reason.

Thirdly, or, let me just give you two basic discoveries. The Bible consists of 66 separate books. There are 66 individual books that are put together in this library of books we hold. It’s penned by over 40 authors, over several thousand years, and it has an integrated message system. That means every part of this book… can you imagine writing a book that’s as long as the Bible and being in conjunction with 40 other authors, and none of you got to confer with one another. Can you imagine that? And you’re writing about the same topic, and it’s going to all fit together. And people are going to spend their whole life reading it and comparing what all of you said, and they’re going to never find an error. Now can you imagine that? That’s just astounding, and that’s what we have. It can be demonstrated that the origin of this message is from outside our dimension of space and time.

What I mean by that is, there is an obvious awareness by the author of this book of the future. No other religion, Christianity is not a religion, it’s a revelation, but no religion on the planet has ever written a book that is prophetic. None of them claim that, and I’m going to share that with you a little bit later. Nobody dares to do that, because it’s so easily debunked by people showing it didn’t happen. Yet, every single… and by the way Dr. J. Barton Payne identified over 7,000 distinct prophecies in the Bible. He’s cataloged them into over 700 categories. And he’s written his great, monumental, 60 year old Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy. And what he said is, that it is so obvious that the message of this book is from outside of our dimension of space and time. It is from the presence of God who transcends space and time. He is the Creator. He is above it all. He sits above time. And He knows the end from the beginning. He knows it all. To Him, time is not linear. It doesn’t go from here to here. It’s all going at once. That’s what it means to be in eternity. It’s all going at once. It’s an amazing thing. It’s flat, and He looks down at it. It’s all of time is on a flat piece of paper, and He sees it all at the same time. Amazing thought. The only people who can understand that are mathematicians and children. The rest of us, we get a little fuzzy.

Okay, the third reason why I believe that God’s word is true… by the way, Genesis 1 presents the idea that there are ten dimensions. In fact, Nachmanides, the great Jewish Philosopher in the 10th and 11th century said that there are 10 dimensions. Scientists laughed at that until quantum mechanics and quantum physics and all of the recent mathematical discoveries. And now, what scientists say, read Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, and read all of the technical journals. What they say is, there are four knowable dimensions, and we are in those. That’s space, length/breadth, depth, and time. Those are the knowable dimensions. But this says there are six more unknowable dimensions that are compressed to 10 to the minus 33rd power. That’s a very small space. And what that’s talking about is Einstein’s idea of the universe being actually folded on top of each other. And so, God sits above this pile of all of the universe, above it, beyond it, greater than it all, looking down at all of it at the same time. And that’s exactly what Genesis talks about. That’s what the British philosopher, the Jewish philosophers have always believed in. 10 dimensions. Science just came up with that about 30 years ago.

The third reason why the Bible is truly God’s word is because of its incredible unity.

Now let’s go back to this 40 plus guys getting together and writing one book. Ok, think about it. The supernaturally designed unity is demonstrating the fact that from 40 plus men, on three continents, over 1,600 years, and 60 generations, comes one integrated message. In every word and every detail, there is one unmistakable fabric woven from prison to palace, from desert to dungeon, from hillside to holy place. There is one common denominator. There is one shared theme. There is one united message. There is but one system of doctrine. One system of ethics. One plan of salvation. One rule of faith. And yet, none of them got to see what the other ones were doing as they were writing. They didn’t get to email one another their first drafts. They didn’t get to have a forum and talk about it. They just sat down, and as the Bible says, the Spirit of the Lord, 2 Samuel 23:2, spoke by me. And holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, as Peter says. And all scripture is given by the theopneustos, the breathing out of God. And the third reason why I believe the Bible is truly God’s word is because of its incredible unity.

Fourth, the fourth reason I believe the Bible is truly God’s word is because of its fulfilled prophecy. I alluded to this a little while ago. What is the simplest and yet most profound evidence the Bible offers? It’s prophecy fulfilled. An irrefutable verification. Reserved to the Judeo- that’s the Old Testament, Christian- New Testament scriptures alone. Prophecy is the missing element in all other sacred scriptures of the world’s religions. It’s not found in the Quran, which is much in the limelight these days. There are no prophetic passages describing events in the future in the Quran. It is completely absent from the Hindu writings, the Vedas, the Bhagavad-Gita which is the Persian mystery book. The Book of Mormon which now, the Book of Mormon has no prophecy, it also is totally incorrect in history. If you ever look at the Book of Mormon, there are so many fallacious, unsupportable historic sections that people just pass right over because it’s so embarrassing for them. It says that things happened in America that never happened in America, that have never been archaeologically verified, that if they dug to the core of the Earth, they wouldn’t find evidence of because they didn’t happen. Because it’s a spurious and false book. The sayings of Buddha have no prophecy in them. The writings of Mary Baker Glover Patterson Fry Eddy, she married and divorced many times, the founder of Christian Science, has no prophecy in it.

By contrast, prophecy comprises about one third of the scriptures. Remember, J. Barton Payne said over 7,000 different passages that prophetically speak of God. Now watch, says the Lord, bring forth your strong reasons, says the King of Jacob. What does he say in this passage, if you want to read Isaiah 41:21, He says, who can tell the future? Whoever it is, is God. And He says, I’m the only one. He says, you guys present your case. I’ll tell you what’s going to happen in the future. What I tell you, will happen. What you say, will not happen because I am the Lord. He presents His trump card. His winning hand is a fact. He alone knows, dictates, writes, plans, prophesies the future. That’s the fourth reason.

The fifth reason is this. I believe the Bible is truly God’s word because of its scientific accuracy. Now, I love science. I’ve always loved science. I’ve always studied science, read it, love it. Just the last few chapters of Job would be enough to prove the extraterrestrial nature of this book. What do I mean by that? Job spoke about the Earth as if he was in space looking at it. He talks about it being spherical. He talks about its rotation. He talks about the layers of the Earth going down toward the center. The foundations and the layers that go above it. They didn’t have any idea about the stratification of the Earth back then. There was no way that they had gotten over to see the Grand Canyon and saw a mile deep, let alone further down than that. Job talks about, and I’m going to share these in just a moment, just amazing stuff.

Have you ever read an old biology book? For a laugh, it’s really funny to see how vastly the biological sciences are changing. Have you ever read an old astronomy textbook? Again, hilarious when you read it. So much has changed. In fact, in nearly every area of the sciences, there’s flux, there’s change, there’s restatement. There’s casting out the old and disproved theories or statements. Often there’s complete error and mistaken theories, but not with God. He said it right the first time. God is absolutely scientifically accurate every time He speaks. Let’s look at a few of those.

Astrophysics of dark matter. It says in Job 38:19, where is the way where light dwells. And as for darkness, where is the darkness? He speaks of light and darkness as two separate entities. That’s interesting. Most people never thought of that. You know what they thought darkness was? The absence of light. Do you know what they thought light was? The absence of darkness. It’s either here or it’s not. They didn’t think of them as two separate, actually, physical, tangible properties. 90% of the mass of the universe is dark matter that we don’t even know what it is. That’s what science has concluded. And they keep speculating, and postulating, and perambulating, or whatever you want to say. They’re always trying to figure out what it is, but they can’t quite figure it out. But God says, He says, hey do you know we’re light dwells? Do you know where darkness dwells? I do. He says I separated them. And the more scientists discover the total engineering plan of this universe and the laws of it, the more they see that there is design built into it.

Also, gravity. It says in Job 38:31, can you bind the sweet influence of the Pleiades or lose the bands of Orion? That’s Job 38:31. You say, oh great, what is that? Did you know that the Pleiades and Orion are the only two constellations visible in the sky, which the stars are actually next to each other. You say, what do you mean by that? If I could show stars here on the platform, if you look at the Big Dipper, one of the stars of the Big Dipper is If we’re over there, that’s here, and another star is way over here, and another one is a gazillion miles over here. But when you look at them the Big Dipper looks like they’re all beside each other but actually, there’s varying vast distances between those stars. But there are two constellations that scientists have found from the observable evening sky, two alone, where all of the stars are gravitationally bound to each other. That means that they are connected by gravity, that they are pulling on each other. The two are the belt of Orion and The Seven Sisters, as they’re called, of Pleiades.

Now, let me ask you, how did Job know? Notice what the verse says, can you bind the sweet influences, the gravitational tug, and he names what was not found until Hubble in this century. Edwin Hubble from Marshfield, Missouri, found the gravitational tug, and actually his workers found it, between those two constellations in our night sky. Job knew about it before the time of Abraham. Why? Because what Job was writing was of extraterrestrial origin. It was from God, who happens to be up there and know which stars are close to each other and which ones are sweetly influencing each other.

Okay, here’s another one. Oceanography. Job 38:16, says, hast thou entered into the springs of the sea, or hast thou walked in search of the depths? Did you know, it wasn’t until the French perfected the bathysphere, and they were able to finally construct an object that could take the multiple tons per square inch that the ocean depths have. It was the first time that man was able to be lowered down in these great objects. It was just a big steel box with oxygen in and they lower people down. These things go down into the trenches in the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean. And they finally found that at the bottom of the ocean there are these springs that vent out this hot water and all these nutrients. And there’s just a whole galaxy of life that lives right on these vents. And you know what the Lord says? Have you entered into the springs of the sea? No. Nobody had been deeper than a hundred feet. They say pearl divers may have been able to hold their breath and not kill themselves and go down maybe 60 feet. That is the deepest anybody had ever been until modern times. And yet, Job knew about oceanography.

And Job, under the inspiration of God’s Spirit, from an extraterrestrial source, knew all about the gravitational pull, about dark matter, about light, and about the vents in the bottom of the ocean. And he knew that probably as the first book written, he wrote it before Moses, or else Moses wrote it. So, we’re talking about the oldest book in the Bible, is a book of Job.

What’s another one? Another science lesson, ornithology. Remember that? Birds. Doth the hawk fly by the wisdom and stretch out her wings toward the south? How do the birds know how to get to Florida, or wherever it is they go? How, I watch them, and I hear the geese go over our house. Quack, quack, quack, or whatever sound they make, and I think, are they flying the right direction? But you know what God programmed into them? He gave them, it says in verse 27 of Job 39, doth the eagle mount at Thy command, and make her nest on high. She dwells, and abideth on the rock, upon the crag of the rock, the strong place, for then she seeketh her prey. And her eyes behold are far off. You bet, an eagle can see, an eagle can see from thousands of feet with such acuity and clarity that it can see a little tiny rodent running along from several thousand feet up better than our spy satellites, because you don’t have to blast it up there, and maintain it. And spend five or six hundred million dollars. Just unbelievable ability they have. Her young also suck up blood when they’re slain, and where the slain [are], there [is] she. Animal migration. This, what we just take glibly this GPS thing, everybody’s got one in their boat when they’re fishing, and they’re looking at their little GPS thing. People have them in their cars, and they’re tracking, and they know right where they are. That is a very modern thing, we’re talking about in the last 25, 30 years. Yet, God built that into animals. Birds. In a moment I’m going to show you fish. Even insects seem to have it. What do they have? They seem to be able to sense the Earth’s magnetic fields, and they know which direction they’re going. And this is built into, to what we would consider dumb animals. Who’s the dumb one on this planet? I don’t think it’s the animals. See, the animals know their Creator and mankind, by and large, doesn’t. But, ornithology, from Job 39:26-30.

Zoology. Who provides for the ravenous food? What I like to ask is, what about the sockeye salmon? You say, what are the sockeye salmon? They are a unique type of salmon. And those salmon migrate every year. 50 million of them, Bristol Bay Sockeye Salmon, get home each year exactly… Now remember, not all salmon are alike, there are many variants, many species of salmon. Did you know that there is a species of salmon that are called Rockeye Salmon, that always return to Bristol Bay, nowhere else. You can, and scientists do that, they try and mix them up, they will take one of those salmon, tag them with a little tag that they can monitor, and they will fly it and keep it alive, and they’ll place it in another ocean and let it go. And that thing, I don’t know whether it goes through the Panama Canal or what, but it always makes its way back to Bristol Bay. How do salmon know where Bristol Bay is? Do you? If we picked you up and dumped you over somewhere in Thailand in the jungle, could you find your way back to Broken Arrow with no help, all on your own, as a baby? We’re talking about baby salmon that are uprooted and sent and returned to where they spawn. They travel over 4,000 miles, all to return, every time, the same three weeks in June. 50 million of them live in the world’s oceans. They all come back, 50 million of them, the same three weeks. They have a family reunion every year. How do they do that? How do they know that? Don’t you wish you could teach your children that, right? Those of you that are older. Have them all come home, from the far ends of the Earth.

What’s amazing is, God has placed some nearly unbelievable senses into the animal world. Migratory birds fly thousands of miles exactly to their destination. Scientists conclude they have a sense of the Earth’s magnetic fields, an internal compass. The King of the Universe, our Creator, didn’t leave us out. We have a compass too. That’s what I’m getting all wound up about tonight. I spend so much of my time… people coming in and say, I’m not sure what the Lord’s will about this and that. You know what I check on them? They haven’t been even looking at their compass. They haven’t been finding out His will. [Pointing to the Bible] This is the mind of God. This is the will of God. This is the plan of God. This is what is supposed to fill our hearts, and our minds, and our mouths, and our lives. We’re supposed to build our lives beneath its truth. And how’s your compass?

Our directional capacity far exceeds the animal world’s awareness of magnetic fields, or one part of a billion where we were spawned. No, we have a direct line to our Creator. We have Him. He starts and finishes all we ever need. All he asks us to do is to look to Him. And the Lord says, My eyes are running to and fro throughout this Earth. And He says, I’m looking for one whose heart is toward Me. And He says, I will show Myself strong toward that one. How is your compass tonight? Do you believe God’s word is true? Do you cry out to Him and ask him and say, God? I want to know Your will. I want to know it because I want to do it. I want to know it because I want to do it, because I love to do it. Not just because I have curiosity, because I love to do Your will. That’s what Jesus’ attitude was. He says, I came in the volume of the book. It says in Hebrews, it is written of Me to do Your will, O God. What did Jesus pray at the most climactic, desperate hour of His life, when He was moaning, and crying out in agony in the garden? He said, Not My will, but Thine be done. He said, I want You to guide Me. What did the writer of Hebrews say about that moment? Jesus learned obedience. Tell you what, if Jesus learned obedience, ho ho, we’ve got a lot to learn. We need to let His word be on our heart. Okay, ultimate science.

Here’s the next. The sixth reason why I believe the Bible is truly God’s word is because of its archaeological verification. We lightly speak of things. You hear me up here saying the pool of Bethesda John 5, the Pool of Bethesda. What is that? It’s the five-sided pool described in John 5. Yes. But did you know that the pool of Bethesda from AD 70 until 1883 was never seen. In AD 70, when the legions of the Roman Empire utterly destroyed Jerusalem, when that event took place, the Pool of Bethesda was buried under rubble. It was never seen again until Charles Warren put a shaft down there in the 1880s and hit it. Because it said in the Bible, in John 5, where it was. And it said it was by the sheep’s pool, where they washed the sheep for the sacrifice. So, he knew it would be by the sheep gate, which would be by the northeast end of the city. And so, Warren went around putting shafts down through the rubble, and when he went down almost 60 feet, he came to the pool of Bethesda. How did he know it was there? Because he believed the Bible.

We sit, and stand, and rest on the verification of centuries of those who have come to the Bible and confirmed it. And sometimes we just lightly pass it by. Every time archaeology has sought to disprove the Bible, archaeology has been disproven. Every time they have thought that a place named in the Bible was not historical it was found, let me just share one with you. In the 19th century, Sir William Ramsay, an English skeptic, set about to disprove the historicity of God’s word. One of those rich British guys, had inherited wealth, and didn’t believe the Bible. And so once and for all he was going to settle the matter and show them. He was a brilliant man. He decided he would take as his target, the Book of Acts. And he started digging in modern Turkey, which was part of the Roman Empire called Asia Minor, the Roman province of Asia. What he found amazed the world of archaeology. He actually took the Book of Luke, and he opened up, and it says, just for example, I mean the Book of Acts. He started in chapter 13, where it starts talking about Paul’s missionary journeys, and so he grabbed the Bible and started going through Asia Minor, and when it says that Paul departed from there and went to Cyprus, so he went to Cyprus and found that, and then it says he went to Paphos in verse 13, and then to Perga and Pamphylia, and every time it talked about how many days he traveled, he would actually go to those spots and he would walk with his diggers for that many days, and then they would sit down on the ground and start digging and see what they found. And do you know what? Every single city in the book of Acts he ever looked for, he found, just where Paul said it was.

And so, Sir William Ramsay went and found that not only were all the cities Paul spoke of traveling through actually there, but when he dug down to them, he found inscribed in the stones of the streets, words that only occur in the Bible. Once when Paul was roughed up, and frisked, and mugged, and scourged, and everything, it says that the rulers of the city, blah, blah, blah. You know what the word is in the book of Acts in Greek? Asiarchs. And people would say, Asiarchs? What is that? Cute anachronism, it’s some little word that they made up. When he dug up the city where that passage is from, in the stones of the Forum, the central meeting place of the city. It says, to the honor of Caesar, we the Asiarchs of this city have decreed. Using an exact word that was hidden from civilization, from science, and history for over 2,000 years, buried under rubble, cut into marble stone, only showing up in one other place, the Bible that you can trust.

What was the result of that? He, that’s Sir William Ramsay, became a believer because of the profound historical reliability of God’s word. Because it was verified archaeologically. I could go on, and on, and on, and on. Not only the Hittites, on to all the other graphically described events in the Bible that were eyewitness accounts that God recorded in this book without error, and that all we have to do is simply believe Him.

Okay, Here’s the final reason. The seventh reason I believe the Bible is truly God’s word is because of its endurance through the ages. Because of its endurance Through the ages, despite being the target of empires, entire empires have been arrayed against God’s word. Armies, infidels, through all that, the Bible stands as the hymn puts it, like a rock undaunted through the raging storms of time. Its pages burn with the truth eternal, and they glow with the light divine. All you have to do is spend time and you’ll find that the Bible is addicting. You get to love it. You get to long for it. You get to want it because it’s just so powerful and it is. It glows with the light divine. The Bible stands though the hills may tumble. They tumbled down in Bethesda, they dug down, they found it. They tumbled down on those cities of Paul’s journeys, of those ancient Roman Empire cities and Ramsay found them. It will firmly stand, though the Earth may crumble. And the Earth is going to crumble, although we know that the Earth as we know it is going to exist until at least the year 3009. [This message is originally from 2002.] You understand that, right? This planet is going to be around until 3009, because the thousand year millennium, and the seven year Tribulation, plus 2002. So, don’t worry. But the Earth is going to crumble. And I will take my stand on this firm foundation for the Bible stands, because it’s endured through the ages.

Real quickly, let’s wrap this up. The Bible presents the panorama of history. The Bible describes basically 6,000 years of history, starting with creation, the fall of man, the flood, Abraham, the exodus, David, the exile, Christ. It shows the nation of Israel, the diaspora. Genesis covers, you notice, from creation all the way over to the exodus. Genesis covers a majority of history. It’s just unbelievable how important the book of Genesis is, and I’m going to show you that. The rest of the Old Testament, you can see, goes from the Exodus through the Exile. Then there’s the 400 year period. And then the New Testament is there.

I want to show you how important the book of Genesis is. First of all, we studied the first installment of our study of Genesis on creation, Genesis 1 and 2. I called it, In the Beginning. Next, We looked at the fall of man. I call that Paradise Lost. That’s chapter 3. That was Cain and Abel, and the whole temptation, and that whole thing. Then we looked at the genealogy of Noah, and the sacrifice of Cain and Abel in the Lost World series. Then the flood of Noah, The World That Perished. And then we went into the Brave New World, and cavemen, and where the nations came from. We’re going to pick up there. Then we cut into Abraham in chapter 12 and the Miracle of Israel, that is totally predicated on Genesis 12. So, that’s how important Genesis is.

We see through the Bible, remember, there’s one integrated design. In the New Testament, we find the Old Testament concealed. The New Testament is full of the Old Testament. It’s built on an underlying framework of the Old Testament. And we’re going to see that as we go through the New Testament. But the Old Testament is in the New Testament, revealed. It’s one book. It’s not two books, it’s one book. All of it is the word of God. Every word of God is pure. All of it is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness.

Also, the Bible anticipates all false philosophies. Atheism is untrue because we are created by God. Pantheism is untrue because God is transcendent and distinguishable from His creation. Polytheism is wrong because the Bible reveals there is only one God, not three, not many. Materialism is untrue because matter had a beginning. Materialism says matter has always been. God says, no, I started matter. Humanism is wrong because God, not man, is the ultimate reality. And by the way, this is where America is. We’re humanistic. We believe reality is based on us. What I feel, what I think, where I’m going, what’s important to me, and not God. And humanism is wrong. And finally, evolutionism is wrong because God created. Uniformism, God intervenes. Catastrophes, the flood.

All major doctrines, by the way, you’ll find in the book of Genesis. That’s why we have actually taken years going through the book of Genesis. The book of Genesis describes and begins our understanding of sovereign election. It explains salvation, substitutionary, blood offering, the whole idea, the fact of justification by faith, Abraham, a believer’s security. Even the rascal, Jacob, was kept and God shepherded him to his life. Separation from evil as in Lot. The disciplinary chastisement, as we see in the patriarchs. The Rapture of the Church. You say, where’s the Rapture of the Church? Oh, Genesis. You say, what do you mean by that? The whole world is destroyed, but two groups are not. Enoch is taken out before the flood, and no one in his family goes through the flood. What does the Bible say? The Church is going to come out before the flood, the Jews are going to be preserved through the flood.

How about this? Lot. God could not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah till He physically took Lot and his family out of the city. There’s something about that, and we find often in the scriptures, this concept, that God does not pour out His wrath when His people are in a place. And we are His people, His Church, which is what God is doing right now. The death and resurrection, divine incarnation, priesthood of Aaron and Melchizedek, the Anti-Christ is prefigured. The Palestinian covenant that God gave the land that is now called Palestine to His people.

There are four basic questions all of us ask. Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? And where am I going when I die? All of those ultimate questions are answered in this way. The central theme. The Old Testament is an account of a nation. The New Testament is the account of a man. The Creator became a man. That’s what the New Testament reveals. His appearance is the central event of the history of the universe, not just of the Earth. It says in the Bible that all of the universe is groaning, waiting for Jesus to finish this thing. This is the central event of the universe, and we happen to be on the planet where it’s taking place. He, that is the Creator, died to purchase us. He’s alive now. And listen to this, the most exalted privilege of all of life, of all the universe, if you could go on a starship and at warp speed go through hyperspace, there is nothing like what He offers tonight, and that is to know Him. And that’s what the whole Bible is about.

How do we know Him? It’s called the Scarlet Thread. From the seed of the woman, He would come. He was to come through Abraham, as Abraham called. He was going to be coming, this Redeemer, through the tribe of Judah. He’s called Shiloh. He would be a son of David and sit on David’s throne. He was born of a virgin. It was promised in the Old Testament, it was promised five and seven hundred years before the event, that He would be virgin born in the city of Bethlehem. And that He would go to another tree in another garden. And that tree in that garden is of course Jesus Christ dying, the substitutionary, in my place, sacrificial death.

Again I ask you, why do we need the Bible? Because from world events it appears that we are being plunged right now into a period of time about which the Bible says more than about any other period of time in history. Did you know more of the Bible is describing what is just ahead of us on this planet than even… Here’s the last line, including the time that Jesus walked the shores of Galilee and climbed the mountains of Judea. We know more about what’s going to happen from tonight into the future than we know about everything that happens surrounding the life of Christ. There’s more in the Bible about all that.

So, my last question to you is this. Do you need a strategic grasp of the Bible? Yes. But it only begins if you answer the question, do you really believe God’s word? Do you believe it is important, and vital, and precious enough to actually commit a part of every day, reading? In fact, I just met with a young man. He says, Pastor Barnett help me, I’m in a desperate time in my life, what should I do? I said, okay, I’ll tell you a secret. 20. 20. 20. Read the Bible intensely for 20 minutes. Spend 20 minutes thinking about what you read, marking, underlining, writing, and then spend 20 minutes praying from what you read. If should spend an hour every day, your life will be transformed. There’s not a single person in this room, out of your 168 hours, that you don’t have 7. There are 168 in a week, 7 times 24 is 168. There’s no one in this room that does not have 7 hours, one a day, to spend 20 minutes reading as much of this book as you can get, 20 minutes meditating on what you just read and applying it to your life. And then dropping down on your face, on your knees, bowing before the Lord, and saying, I really believe Your word. What do You want me to do? How do You want me to live? And yielding yourself to the truth of that book.

Let’s bow before the Lord in prayer. I thank you, Lord, tonight that You offer to us the privilege, the most exalted privilege, that we can know the Creator, You, who are our Redeemer. I pray that as we embark on this, getting our hands and our hearts around this book, that it would be looked back on, if You tarry in the years ahead in our lives, as one of the most momentous times when we truly got a comprehensive scope and view and understanding of what this whole book is about. And it so filled our hearts and our minds and our lives, that we live like we know the God of this universe. We live in love, we live in hope, we live in the absence of fear, and the decreasing frequency of sin, and the increasing frequency of holiness. I pray for 7 hours in the lives of your people this week. May they, if they can’t read, listen. If they can’t listen, may they read. And if they can’t do either, may someone find someone to get them into Your word. But Lord, help us to spend that time so we can be conformed to your image. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

This evening we begin our new study I’m calling a “Strategic Grasp of the Bible”. This is one of the greatest studies we could ever share. Why? Because the Bible is the Revelation of all that God wants us to know about everything we need to know. If He hasn’t revealed it – either it is a secret or it is unimportant. So the more of God’s Word you have a grasp on, the more you know about all that really matters in life.

If you would turn with me to John 17.17 we will find the first reason we need God’s Word.

“Thy Word is TRUTH”!

First, why would we even want to grasp the Bible? I hope it is because you believe that this book truly is God’s Word! That is really the only place any study can start. So a strategic grasp BEGINS with a settled conviction of the TRUTHFULNESS OF THE BIBLE. That it says what it means, and means what it says.

Just for a reminder, let me give you a 2 minute summary of the study we did a few years back called THE BOOK YOU CAN TRUST. In that study I shared my personal convictions which I call — Seven Reasons Why I Believe The Bible Is True. Here they are:

I BELIEVE THE BIBLE IS TRULY GOD’S WORD BECAUSE OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST SAID SO! Our Lord Jesus Christ believed in the verbal inspiration of the Bible. That means every word is inspired by the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 5:18). This means that there are no errors in science, history, or moral areas in the Bible, which we call inerrancy (John 10:35; 17:17). Jesus thus affirmed the historical reliability of the Scriptures by speaking of Adam and Eve as the first two humans (Mt. 19:4-5); by testifying of the reality of Noah and the global catastrophe called the Flood (Mt. 24:37); by speaking of Abraham as a person who lived and who knew Him as God the Son (John 8:56). Jesus even affirmed the reliability of the writings and lives of the major Old Testament personages. Adam and Eve (Mt. 19:4-5); Abel (Mat 23.35); Noah and flood (Mt. 24:37-38); Abraham (John 8:56); Moses and the Bush (Mk 12.26); David (Mt 12.3); Elijah (Luke 4.25); Daniel (Mt 4.17); Jonah (Mt. 12:40-41).
I BELIEVE THE BIBLE IS TRULY GOD’S WORD BECAUSE ALL THE WRITERS SAID SO. There is a harmony of conviction by the forty plus authors God spoke through. Thousands of times all the writers said so. They were totally convinced that they were sharing words that were not originating with them.
I BELIEVE THE BIBLE IS TRULY GOD’S WORD BECAUSE OF ITS INCREDIBLE UNITY. Because of its incredible unity demonstrated in the fact that from 40 plus men on 3 continents over 1,600 years and 60 generations comes one unmistakable fabric woven from prison to palace, desert to dungeon, hillside to holy places. There is one common denominator, one shared theme and one united message. There is but one system of doctrine, one system of ethics, one plan of salvation and one rule of faith.

I BELIEVE THE BIBLE IS TRULY GOD’S WORD BECAUSE OF ITS FULFILLED PROPHECY. What is the simplest and yet most profound evidence the Bible offers? It is prophecy fulfilled, an irrefutable verification reserved to the Judeo-Christian Scriptures alone. Prophecy is the missing element in all other sacred scriptures of the world’s religions; It is not to be found in the Koran, the Hindu Vedas, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Book of Mormon, the sayings of Buddha, the writings of Mary Baker Eddy (Christian Science). By contrast prophecy comprises about one third of the Scriptures! Isaiah 41:21 ” Present your case,” says the LORD. “Bring forth your strong [reasons,”] says the King of Jacob. (NKJV)
I BELIEVE THE BIBLE IS TRULY GOD’S WORD BECAUSE OF ITS SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY. Just the last few chapters of Job would be enough to prove the extra terrestrial nature of this Book. Have you ever read an old biology book? It is really funny to see how vastly the biological sciences are changing. Have you looked at an old Astronomy textbook? So much has changed. In fact in nearly every area of the Sciences there is flux, change, restatement and casting out the old and disproved statements. Often there is complete error and mistaken theories. But not with God, HE SAYS IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME!

I BELIEVE THE BIBLE IS TRULY GOD’S WORD BECAUSE OF ITS ARCHAEOLOGICAL VERIFICATION. In the 19^th Century Sir William Ramsay an English skeptic set about to disprove the historicity of God’s Word. He took as his target the Book of Acts. He started digging in modern Turkey, ancient Asia Minor. What he found amazed the world of archaeology. Not only were all the cities Paul spoke of traveling through actually there, even the words he used to describe public officials were found beneath centuries of ruins exactly as recorded in Acts by Luke! He became a believer because of the profound historical reliability of God’s Word.

I BELIEVE THE BIBLE IS TRULY GOD’S WORD BECAUSE OF ITS ENDURANCE THROUGH THE AGES. Because of its endurance through the ages despite being the target of Empires, armies and infidels the Bible stands like a rock undaunted through the raging storms of time. Its pages burn with the truth eternal and they glow with a light divine. The Bible stands though the hills may tumble it will firmly stand though the Earth may crumble. I will take my stand on its firm foundation for the Bible stands!

So we need a strategic grasp because God’s Word is TRUTH. Secondly, we need to understand why God gave us these 66 inspired books. To understand why, turn with me to Luke 24.25-27. Here Jesus gives a seven mile Bible study to those on the road to Emmaus. Note what He said THEY (the entire Old Testament) SPEAK (every book, every chapter, even every detail) OF ME (the Bible is Christ centered)!

1. Astrophysics of Dark Matter Job 38:19 Where [is] the way [where] light dwelleth? and [as for] darkness, where [is] the place thereof, (KJV) [99% of the mass of the Universe is dark matter we don’t even know what it is]; and Gravity Job 38:31 Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? (KJV) One of the major areas of study in astronomy is the gravitational tug of stars and systems.

2. Oceanography Job 38:16 Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in the search of the depth? (KJV) [there are teeming life systems surrounding the toxic hot springs at volcanic vents, two miles down in the dark ocean depths unknown until this century]

3. Ornithology Job 39:26-30 Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, [and] stretch her wings toward the south? 27 Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high? 28 She dwelleth and abideth on the rock, upon the crag of the rock, and the strong place. 29 From thence she seeketh the prey, [and] her eyes behold afar off. 30 Her young ones also suck up blood: and where the slain [are], there [is] she. (KJV) Animal migratory navigation was not even closely imitated until satellite navigation, yet God built it into fish, birds and even insects!

4. Zoology Job 38:41 Who provideth for the raven his food? when his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat. (KJV) They arrive with precision against all odds. But how do those 50,000,000 Bristol Bay sockeye salmon get home each year? How do they know the exact time to return to their spawning spot from as far as 4,000 miles away? And to all return every time those same three weeks in June and July! They never miss their mark. Why? God gave them an absolutely focused sense of direction. God has placed some nearly unbelievable senses into the animal world. Look at migratory birds. They fly thousands of miles exactly to their destination. How? Scientists conclude they have a sense of the earth’s magnetic fields, like an internal compass. The King of the Universe, our Creator, didn’t leave us out. How’s your compass? Our directional capacity far exceeds the animal world’s awareness of magnetic fields or one part per billion of where we were spawned. No, we have a direct line to the Creator. We have Him. He starts and finishes all we ever need. LOOK UNTO HIM!

5. Meteorology is the study of our atmosphere. Only a few hundred years ago was it found that air above us has mass or weight. However in the first and oldest book of the Bible nearly 4,500 years ago Job said Job 28:24-25 For He looks to the ends of the earth, [And] sees under the whole heavens, 25 To establish a weight for the wind, And apportion the waters by measure. (NKJV)

6. Hydrology is the water cycle of the Earth. Water circulates from the ground and seas to the air and back again. Scripture explicitly documents this fact. Go back 4500 years ago to the oldest book in the world and listen to God discuss Evaporation, Condensation, Vapor Clouds and Precipitation – all the elements of hydrology, through Job. Job 36:27-28 For He draws up drops of water, Which distill as rain from the mist, 28 Which the clouds drop down [And] pour abundantly on man. (NKJV) Now that is Scientific Precision! Job 26:8 He binds up the water in His thick clouds, Yet the clouds are not broken under it. (NKJV) Job 28:10-11 He cuts out channels in the rocks, And his eye sees every precious thing. 11 He dams up the streams from trickling; [What is] hidden he brings forth to light. (NKJV)

Isostasy is the relatively new study of the rotational balance there is in our global earth between the height of mountains and the depths of the oceans. The desire to understand earthquakes and so on has caused this scientific inquiry. There must be a balance for the earth to not wobble. Did God know about this? He sure does. Listen to Isaiah 600 years before Christ Isaiah 40:12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, Measured heaven with a span And calculated the dust of the earth in a measure? Weighed the mountains in scales And the hills in a balance? (NKJV)

Geodesy studies the shape, size and gravitation forces on the planet. Although science thought the world flat for a time the Scriptures have ALWAYS affirmed the truth. The Earth Rotates (turning on an axis) is a fact that up to the 1400’s was absent from science. The thinkers of the day said the earth was flat. The Hindu writings affirm that it rested on the backs of elephants. But God gives Scriptural truth in Job 38:14 It takes on form like clay [under] a seal (turning a cylinder in a axis to sign documents), And stands out like a garment. (NKJV) Wow, it rotates and Job 26:7 He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, [and] hangeth the earth upon nothing.

Geology Job 38:4-6 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. 5 Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? 6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; (KJV)

Check Out All The Sermons In The Series

You can find all the sermons and short clips from this series, Christ in all the Scriptures here.

Looking To Study The Bible Like Dr. Barnett?

Dr. Barnett has curated an Amazon page with a large collection of resources he uses in his study of God’s Word. You can check it out here.