Sermon Tone Analysis

10 REASONS WHY WE BELIEVE THE BIBLE IS THE WORD OF GOD

PART 3

I.        INTRODUCTION                                     

 

          A.

WE’RE BEGINNING THE NEW YEAR with an affirmation of the Word of God...

 

IF THE BIBLE IS THE WORD OF GOD, then we better heed it as such...

 

AS THE REFORMERS said, we ought to make it our ultimate authority for all matter of faith and practice...

 

BUT YOU DON’T HAVE TO LOOK VERY FAR TO SEE that the church in 2007, for the most part anyway, doesn’t believe that anymore...

 

THEY CAN’T BELIEVE the Bible is the Word of God or they wouldn’t be doing what they’re doing and embracing what they’re embracing...

 

WHAT I’VE BEEN ABLE TO SEE slipping by the wayside more and more, even in my short lifetime in the church, is that deep, unwavering, non-negotiable conviction about the Word of God...

 

IT’S CERTAINLY NOT ENTIRELY GONE, but it is becoming rarer than it ever was before among the men who stand in the pulpits of our churches...

 

AND IF I UNDERSTAND JUDE AND PETER AND PAUL correctly, this situation is going to get even worse in the days ahead...

 

AND IT IS A SERIOUS SITUATION for the church...

 

GOD’S TRUTH, as recorded on the pages of Scripture, is the only thing that has the power to save lost men and sanctify believers...

 

IT’S THE ONLY THING that has the power to change people’s lives...

 

BUT AS SOON as the man in the pulpit starts regarding the Bible as anything less than the Word of God, he will start feeding the people other things; he’ll start giving them things out of the bankrupt wells of human wisdom...

 

AND THE CHURCH WILL DIE and slip into apostasy, the very thing that Jude warns about in his epistle...

 

II.

BODY

 

IT’S WITH THESE VERY THOUGHTS IN MIND that I have decided to start this new year with an affirmation of our conviction about the Word of God...

 

WE’VE BEEN WORKING DOWN THROUGH 10 REASONS why we believe the Bible is the Word of God...

 

I’M JUST GOING TO LIST the first 7 this morning as a lead up to #8...

 

WE BELIEVE THE BIBLE IS THE WORD OF GOD because of...

 

          A.

THE TESTIMONY OF SCRIPTURE itself to that fact...

(The Bible itself claims to be the Word of God...)

 

          B.

SECONDLY, WE CONSIDERED THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST to that fact...

(It’s very clear that Jesus Christ regarded the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God and I gave you lots of evidence to support that...)

 

          C.

THIRDLY WAS THE TESTIMONY OF THE WRITERS...

(They knew they were penning the Word of God and made clear statements to that fact...)

 

          D.

WE ALSO BELIEVE the Bible to be the Word of God because of its textual unity...

(40 different authors writing over a span of 1600 years fully and perfectly agree on everything... That’s more than just a coincidence and it’s even more than amazing... that can only be supernatural...!)

 

          E.

A FIFTH REASON is the Bible’s miraculous preservation...

(How many other books do you know of that are still in print and still being read some 2000 years or more after the first copy came out...? The Bible is the only book like that...!)

 

          F.

REASON #6 IS THE BIBLE’S HISTORICAL ACCURACY...

(What is says about people, places, and events is always right as is continually proven by the archaeologist’s spade...)

 

          G.

AND THEN A 7TH REASON we talked about is the Bible’s scientific accuracy...

(Once again, the Bible has never been proven wrong with regard to a scientific statement and that’s because the Bible’s Author is also the Author of science...)

 

          H.

THIS MORNING WE PICK UP with reason #8...

 

THIS IS A VERY SIGNIFICANT REASON and a very fascinating one...

 

WE BELIEVE THE BIBLE IS THE WORD OF GOD because of its prophetic accuracy...

 

AND LET ME INTRODUCE THIS SUBJECT to you by reading a couple paragraphs out of a book called “Science and the Bible” written by the well-known commentator, Henry Morris...

 

/An especially powerful type of historical evidence for the Bible and Christianity is that of fulfilled prophecy–historical events written down long before they actually happen.

Hundreds of prophecies in the Bible have been remarkably fulfilled exactly as foretold but often hundreds of years later.

This type of evidence is unique to the Bible and can be explained only by divine inspiration.

God, the Creator of time, is outside of time.

He is the only One who controls the future and, therefore, is the only One who knows the future./

/Bible prophecies are not vague and rambling, such as those of Nostradamus and other supposed extrabiblical prophets.

Prophecies in the Bible deal with specific places, people, and events, and their fulfillments can be checked by reference to subsequent history./

AGAIN LET ME SAY that this is a huge reason, really an indisputable reason to believe that the Bible is the Word of God...

 

TO STUDY this subject of fulfilled prophecy as a Bible critic and deal honestly with your findings is to ultimately bow the knee to its divine origin...

(Josh McDowell and the now great apologist and Biblical scholar, John Warwick Montgomery would both testify to the truth of this statement...

They both studied the Bible in an effort to disprove it...)

\\  

THERE IS JUST NO WAY AROUND this magnitude of fulfilled prophecy for the critic; divine inspiration is the only option...

 

AND I SIMPLY WANT TO DEMONSTRATE that for you this morning...

 

AND LET’S BEGIN with a definition of prophecy, so that we know what we are and are not talking about...

 

MEN AND WOMEN are able to have certain insights into the future...

 

VARIOUS INDICATORS, for example, enable the world’s experts to foresee business, political, and social trends...

 

AND WITH TODAY’S TECHNOLOGY meteorologists are able to predict the weather with greater and greater accuracy...

 

AND YOU KNOW as well as I do that sometimes these predictions, in all of these various areas, are right, sometimes they’re almost right, and then at other times, they’re completely wrong...

 

AND THAT’S BECAUSE no mortal can predict future events in exact detail...

 

AND I GUESS WHAT I’M TRYING TO SAY here is that these kinds of things are not what we’re talking about when we use the word “prophecy”...

 

THESE ARE what we might call “almost-accurate guesses” or “wise bits of speculation based on available data”...

 

PROPHECY is in a completely different category...

 

PREDICTIVE PROPHECY is a detailed statement of historical fact, made in advance, which is beyond the scope of any human capability...

 

GENUINE PREDICTIVE PROPHECY is exclusively a revelation of God...

 

IN FACT, GOD SAID that Himself through Isaiah in Isa 46:9-10...

/For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done,/

 

HERE WE HAVE GOD HIMSELF claiming predictive prophecy as His exclusive domain...

 

HE’S THE ONLY ONE who can do it because He is the only One who is omniscient...

 

AND HE HAS EVEN GIVEN US in His Word, the divine standard by which we can evaluate all prophecy...

 

HOW DO WE KNOW if a prophet is genuine or not...?

 

GOD DOES NOT WANT us to be in the dark on that and made the test of prophecy very clear in Deut 18:20-22...

/DEU 18:20 'But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.'/

/DEU 18:21 "You may say in your heart, 'How will we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?'/

/DEU 18:22 "When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken.

The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him./

THE OMNISCIENT GOD, who claimed exclusive domain over predictive prophecy, also set the standard for it, which is absolute perfection right down to the smallest detail...

 

IF EVEN ONE SMALL BIBLE PROPHECY departed from this standard, then all of His Word would be susceptible to allegations of error...

 

BUT HIS WORD is not susceptible to such allegations because there is not one prophecy in the Word of God that has ever failed...

 

AND YOU SAY, WELL WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT here...?

 

JUST A FEW SCATTERED PROPHECIES in a couple of isolated places in the back corners of the Bible...?

 

NO, THE BIBLE CONTAINS HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of prophecies throughout its pages...

 

THE FIRST ONE concerning Christ, for example, is found as earlier as Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15...

 

OTHER PORTIONS of the OT that are rich with prophetic material would include 20 chapters in Isaiah, 17 chapters in Jeremiah, 9 chapters in Ezekiel, and 2 chapters in Amos...

 

AND THOSE PROPHECIES are quite diverse in subject and scope, some relate to individuals, some relate to large groups of people, some of the pronouncements are directed at individual cities, others at entire nations, and some even to the entire world...

 

A GREAT NUMBER of these prophecies have already been fulfilled and then there are others that are yet to be fulfilled, such as the ones we find in the book of Revelation...

 

DO NOT DOUBT THE THINGS that are foretold in the book of Revelation just because they haven’t happened yet...

 

DON’T BE AMONG the last days mockers that Peter talks about in 2Pet 3:3-4...

/2PE 3:3 Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts,/

/2PE 3:4 and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming?

For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation."/

HE IS COMING BACK and all the prophecies in the book of Revelation will come to pass just as surely as all of the other prophecies already have come to pass, right down to the most minute detail...