… turn for a fourth and a final time tonight to look at the subject of Saved Without A Doubt. We’re at that portion in the story of Joseph where his father has died and his brothers are questioning Joseph’s love and loyalty towards them, given that their father is not there to act as a go-between, at least in their mind. And so we read in Genesis 50 and verse 15, when Joseph’s brother saw that their father was dead, they said, “Perhaps Joseph will hit us and may actually repay us for all the evil which we did to him.” So they send messengers to Joseph saying, “Before your father died, he commanded saying, ‘Thus, you shall say to Joseph, I beg you, please forgive the trespass of your brothers and their sin, for they dead evil to you.'”
“Now, please forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of your father.” And Joseph wept when they spoke to him. Then his brothers also went and fell down before his face, and they said, “Behold, we are your servants.” Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid for am I in the place of God, but ask for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant that for good in order to bring it about as it is this day to see if many people alive. Therefore, do not be afraid. I will provide for you and your little ones,” and he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.
If you read Christian biography, or you study church history, you’ll soon realize that some of God’s choicest saints have had bites with doubts. Their faith has been eclipsed by uncertainty and disbelief. The strong are not always vigorous, the joyful are not always happy, and the brave are not always courageous. And the faithful are not always believing. In fact, one such example of this surrounds the life and the ministry of the Great British expositor, G. Campbell Morgan. He preceded Lloyd Jones at Westminster Chapel in London. He ministered throughout the war years, especially the Second World War in London. At an early point in his ministry as he was really entering the ministry, his faith was eclipsed, and he had a bite with doubt. His faith and belief in the Bible was shaken. He had been reading authors such as Darwin, and Huxley, and the progressive thinkers of his day, and he says that he descended into three ambivalent years.
In fact, in his own words he says this: “I was as honest then as now, and gradually faith, while not undermined, was eclipsed. When the sun is eclipsed, the light is not killed, it is hidden. And there came a moment when I was sure of nothing.” The faith of his father was shaken. His belief in the Bible was tottering. And so what he did was he took all of his books, all of his studies, and he put them in a cupboard, and he locked them away. In fact, years later he commented that he can still hear the click of the key. And he went down to a local bookshop and he bought himself a brand-new Bible. All his study tools, all his commentaries, all his books, locked away. He got before God with an open book and an open heart.
And he came to that time of reading God’s word like this, his own words: “If it is the word of God and I come to it with an unprejudiced and open mind, it will bring assurance of itself.” And over time, that’s exactly what happened. He regained his confidence, he found again his assurance, and he says this, of that Bible he bought from the bookstore. “The Bible found me.” “The Bible found me.” And that needs to be the experience of all those who have struggled with belief, whose faith has been eclipsed by doubt or despair. The Bible tells us that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. If you and I are going to enjoy a confidence about our relationship with God, it’s going to come through you and I resting on the dependability of God’s word.
And that’s where we are in the story of Joseph. For some weeks now, we have looked at this episode between Joseph and his brothers and how they have come to doubt his love, how they have come to question his loyalty upon the death of their father, and he has to renew his pardon, and he has to renew his promise. And we have looked at that extensively under two general headings the evolution of their doubts and then the resolution of their doubts. And we entered upon that last thought, last time.
And we saw that Joseph sought to quell their suspicions and to get rid of their anxieties by one, confirming his pardon, and by two, affirming his promise. And the affirming of his promise is where we’re at tonight. They come upset, anxious, doubting Joseph’s love and loyalty, and he indulges their suspicions, and he seeks to quell their fears, regarding his commitment to their forgiveness and to their future. He’s willing to go over it again to repeat it, to reiterate it. And so he reaffirms his promise. And he reestablishes his pledge to him. He wants them to know the past is the past. Twice here in chapter 5:3 he says to them, “Do not fear.”
Look at verse 19. Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God.” Look at verse 21. “Therefore, do not be afraid. I will provide for you and your little ones.” And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. He had already done this, hadn’t they? Some 17 years earlier back in chapter 45, as the brothers encountered Joseph for the first time and they’re dismayed in his presence according to the biblical text, go back to Genesis 45 and verse three, then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph. Does my father still live?” But his brothers could not answer him. They’re dumbstruck, they’re dismayed, for they were dismayed in his presence. And Joseph said to us, “Brothers, please come near to me,” so they come near. Then he said, “I am Joseph, your brother whom you sold into Egypt, but now do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here for God sent me to preserve your life.” “Don’t be afraid.” He said that many years earlier, and now he has to reaffirm his promise because they were doubting his word.
And this is where I want to close out this little miniseries, or this excursion into the subject of assurance. We wanted to establish the fact that we can be sure of the fact that we have a sure relationship with God. And one of the things that eats away at our confidence is doubt in God’s word. The brothers doubted Joseph’s testimony, they doubted his word. And until they got hold of it again, and were held by it again, they were going to be shaken, and stirred, to a point of great anxiety. But I think Joseph quells their fears. “Do not be afraid.” Look at the end of verse 21, and he comforted them, and spoke kindly to them. It was all about his word, piercing their hearts for the purpose of healing.
And so for the balance of the time tonight, I want us to talk about God’s word, because sometimes our assurance of our relationship with God is shaken because we have lost our confidence in God’s word, or we have allowed others to shake our confidence about it. The well-known children’s hymn goes, “Jesus loves me. This I know for the Bible tells me so.” But with all the doubts cast on the word of God by the critics of the Bible in the last two centuries, many people may sing a new version of that that goes like this: “Jesus loves me, I don’t know. I wish somebody could tell me so.” The Bible has been under attack. In fact, for some time now there’s been a battle for the Bible. And I just want to spend some time positively tonight reinforcing your confidence in the credibility of the word of God, that you can rest your eternal hopes on the sure foundation of God’s inspired and inerrant word.
And so if you’re taking notes, just follow along as I give you a number of lines of defense in the battle for the Bible. Number one, the reason I believe the Bible to be God’s word is because the Bible claims to be God’s word. I believe the Bible to be the word of God because that’s what it claims to be. Our confidence rests upon this presupposition that the Bible claims for itself God as its author. And the Bible in and off itself is self-attesting to that fact. Just as we give ourselves to love, we find true love. So as we give ourselves to the Bible, we will find the Bible to be what it claims to be. The very word of God.
Gleason Archer said it like this: “The only true test of canonicity is the testimony of God, the Holy Spirit, to the authority of his own word.” See, the Bible claims to be God inspired, God breathed, that the prophets of old were carried along like wind in the seal of a ship, they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. And the reason we believe God’s word to be God’s word is because it says so. And the spirit of God confirms that to us. He witnesses to our spirit that this indeed is the revelation of God’s mind and heart to his creation.
The phrase, “Thus says the Lord,” is to be found 3,808 times in the Old Testament. In fact, “God said,” “the Lord said,” “God spoke,” and similar statements occur over 700 times in the Pentateuch alone, the first five books of the Old Testament. In the historical books, there is a similar list of considerably over 400. There is 150 occurrences of those phrases in Isaiah alone; 350 times in the prophecy of Ezekiel, we’re told that God has spoken. The Bible claims for itself to be God’s word. The scriptures are called the Oracles of God in Romans chapter 3 and verse 2; the word of God in Luke 8, verse 11; the word of the Lord in Acts 13:48; the word of life in Philippians 2, verse 16; the word of Christ in Colossians 3:16; the word of truth, Ephesians 1, verse 13; and the word of faith in Romans 10, verse 8.
Why do I believe the Bible is God’s word? Because the Bible claims to be God’s word. And it is self-attesting to that fact in the heart of those that come to believe it. The spirit of God bears witness to our spirit of the Bible’s authenticity and authority. You see, he was sent according to Jesus to lead us into all truth, and towards a confidence in that truth. And if we accept the word of God as the word of God, we will find it to be truly the word of God in our experience. It’s not a matter of brains, it’s a matter of belief, of accepting the Bible for what it says to be. And then the Bible will self-authenticate itself and attest to those realities in each of our lives.
Spurgeon was right. The Bible needs no more defending than a lion needs defending. Let it out and it’ll defend itself. And the first line of defense in the battle for the Bible is that the Bible can defend itself. You know and I know that as it’s preached, it burrows its way into our heart and proves to be what it claims to be. The very word of the living God, powerful and alive, and it brings change, and alters a man’s destiny. The true test of canonicity is the attesting work of the Holy Spirit in the soul of man. And I can give the most cogent and clear arguments tonight for the Bible’s authority and authenticity, but if you won’t come with your heart and mind to rest upon those facts, the voice of God will not be heard in your heart, and the effects of it not known in your life. Our trust in God’s word begins with the presupposition that the Bible is the word of God because it says so, and the Holy Spirit witnesses to that reality in the life of the believing heart.
But let’s go on and make some other arguments. I believe the Bible to be God’s word, one because it claims to be; number two, because of the authority and integrity of the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe the Bible to be the word of God because the Lord Jesus, in whom I believe, believed it was the word of God. Think about this. To doubt the Bible is to cast an awful dispersion on the character and credibility of Christ himself. I believe in the authority of the Bible because I believe in the integrity of Jesus Christ. To deny the Bible is to deny Jesus Christ, who believed in the Bible. If you and I begin to doubt the words of the Old Testament, we must begin to doubt the living word who inaugurated the New Testament. Jesus Christ believed in the word of God. We find them quoting it in his own temptation in Matthew four.
He believed in the historicity of the Book of Genesis as he quotes the scene when God brings Adam to Eve and officiates over that first marriage; in Matthew 19, he mentions Jonah as an historical figure. He talks about manna in the wilderness in John, chapter six; he talks about the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah in Luke, chapter 17; he talks about the serpent that’s lifted up in the wilderness in John, chapter three. The Lord Jesus Christ believed in the historicity of the Old Testament. He believed in the miracles of the Old Testament.
Listen to these words by John Stott. “The overriding reason for accepting the divine inspiration on authority of scripture is plain loyalty to Jesus.” Do you know why I’m a Biblicist? Do you know why I’m a literalist? Do you know why I’m a fundamentalist when it comes to the word of God? Because I love Jesus Christ. And he believed in the word of God. In fact, in Luke, chapter 24, what do we read? And beginning with Moses and the prophets, which is a Hebraic way of saying, in all the scripture he expounded to them, in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. From Genesis to Malachi, Jesus Christ believed the poets and prophets of Israel as the true channels of the truth of God himself.
John Stott goes on: “If Jesus endorsed the Old Testament setting upon it the stamp of his own approval, he also foresaw the writing of the Scriptures of the New Testament parallel to the Scriptures of the Old Testament. Indeed, he not only foresaw it, he actually intended it, and he deliberately made provision for it by appointing and authorizing the Apostles.” And that’s Stott referring to the upper room discourse. Jesus said, “I’m going to go, the Spirit’s going to come. He’s going to lead you into all truth. And you’re going to write it down, and then others are going to believe upon what you wrote.” Isn’t that what he prayed about in John 17?
But that’s another line of defense. In fact, it struck me one day when I was studying John, chapter 19, when the Lord Jesus cried, “I thirst.” You know what it said before he did that? And he knowing that the Scriptures were fulfilled, cried, “I thirst.” Jesus Christ died, didn’t he? According to Paul, according to the Scriptures. His whole life, for want of a better word, was choreographed around the Scriptures. He understood that a promise was made in the garden back in the Book of Genesis that Satan would be ultimately destroyed through the seed of the woman. And he was that seed. Paul talks about that in Galatians 4, that Christ was born of a woman under the law to bear the curse of the law and bring freedom and redemption to us. Jesus Christ lived according to the Scriptures, and he died according to the Scriptures. And I believe the Bible because I believe in Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ believed in the Bible.
Here’s a third line of defense in the battle for the Bible. And the whole intent of this is just to encourage your confidence in God’s words so that you don’t doubt his promises concerning your justification, and you don’t question the veracity of his promises concerning your forgiveness. That you can be persuaded that he’s able to keep you, and that which you’ve committed unto him against that day.
Here’s the third line of defense. I believe the Bible to be God’s word because that’s what it claims, and the spirit of God attests that to that in my heart. I believe it because of the authority and integrity of Jesus Christ, and I believe it because of the unity of the Bible. I believe it because of the unity of the Bible. The Bible is a beautiful tapestry of truth woven together on the loom of time by a variety of authors. And those authors were governed by the hand of God resulting in a flawless telling of redemption story. That was a mouthful, but that was good theology. The Bible is not a patchwork of religious ideas stitched together. There’s a marvelous unity to the Bible. Have you ever thought about that?
Think about these facts with me just for a moment or two. The Bible evolved over a period of 15 centuries. From the writing of the first book to the writing of the last book. Possibly, we’re talking about Job to Revelation. 1500 years. It was written in three different languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. Do you know how many authors there are in the 66 books of the Bible? There are 40 different human authors captivated and enlisted by God to write his word. There’s a variety of occupations. Kings wrote, fishermen wrote, tax collectors wrote, shepherds wrote, prophets wrote, even Doctors wrote. These books were penned under different circumstances and different centuries and cultures.
Some of the word of God was written in Asia, Africa, Europe. Paul wrote from a dungeon in Rome. James wrote from Jerusalem, Moses from Mount Sinai, Daniel from Babylon. And then the Bible discusses a diverse compilation of matters such as the nature of God, and the nature of man, and the purpose of history. The Bible is an astounding book. And you would consider the fact that it spans 1500 years written by 40 different authors in three different languages, across history, in different places, yet there’s a unity to it. It doesn’t contradict itself. It’s got one theme. It’s a whole truth centered upon the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s an amazing reality. And it points to the divine authorship of the Bible, the supernatural nature of scripture.
Listen to these words. It’s a long quote, but get the flavor of it. There’s probably an updated illustration of this, but I think you’ll get this. This is written by Ian McPherson in his little theology called The Faith Once Delivered. Speaking of the Bible, it is if a great book had contributions made by Francis Bacon, William Shakespeare, king James I, and John Doane in the 16th century; then by John Bunyan, John Milton, Isaac Newton, Isaac Watts, Oliver Cromwell and Richard Baxter in the 17th century; then Edmund Burke, Edwin Gibbon, Samuel Johnson, Emmanuel Kant, William Pitt, George Washington, John Wesley, in the 18th century; by Benjamin Disraeli, Robert Peel, William Gladstone, Abraham Lincoln, David Livingstone in the 19th century. And the book turned out to be a complete biography of Winston Spencer Churchill.
That would be an amazing thing. Maybe a simpler illustration of that would be the words of Erwin Lutzer. “Imagine a book on medicine written by 40 different authors over a period of 15 centuries, and yet also imagine that the book is so up-to-date that it still cures the sec today.” And that’s what you’ve got in the supernatural nature of scripture, and the amazing unity of its authors across all those centuries and those different places.
Oh, have a confidence in God’s word. Don’t let a skeptic or a critic shake you in your confidence of it. This is one book with a unified binding. And that binding is the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is a unity to the Bible across those years and through those many authors because God has had one message to tell across the history of Israel, and within the history of the church. And that message is Jesus Christ. The promised seed of the woman. From stem to stern, the Bible is about Christ. Then we read it a moment ago Luke 24:27, and beginning with Moses and the prophets, he expounded, he declared to them, all in all the scriptures, the things concerning himself.
Jesus said, didn’t he? In John 4, verse 39, that, “The religious leaders of his day searched the scriptures but they don’t get it because they don’t realize that the scriptures speak concerning me.” The gospel of Christ is the bold and fine print of the pages of the Bible. The Bible is Christo-centric. That is Christ is a unifying principle and purpose of the Bible. It’s no wonder there’s a unity because Christ is the binding of the Bible. That promise was made straight after the fall. The seed of the woman, the destruction of Satan. Fulfilled in the gospel John tells us that he came to destroy the wicked one in whose lap the world lies.
Wouldn’t you have liked to have been there in Luke 24 when beginning with Moses and all the prophets he spoke to them concerning himself? Probably told them there’s inklings of his own coming and the possible sacrifice of Isaac on Mount Moriah. Perhaps he talked about the Passover in Exodus, chapter 12. Perhaps he went to Psalm 22, talked about the piercing of his hands and feet, and the cry of dereliction, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Perhaps he stopped in Isaiah 53 and show them that he was the suffering servant. In Genesis, he is the seed of the woman; in Exodus, he is the Passover lamb; in Leviticus, he is our high priest; in Numbers, he is the star out of Jacob; in Deuteronomy, he is the prophet, like on the Moses; in Ruth, he is the kinsman redeemer; in Job, he is the risen redeemer; in the Psalms, he is the good shepherd; in Proverbs, he is wisdom; In Isaiah, he’s the suffering servant; in Daniel, he is the smiting stone, and in Malachi, he is the son of righteousness.
A while back, I had the privilege of enjoying an evening with Greg Laurie of Harvest Church, and Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham, was through a mutual friend of theirs, and mine that I was invited to be part of an evening at Harvest. And afterward, we slept out and had dinner together down at Newport Beach, which was a thrill to me to interact with those men and learn something of their lives and their ministries. And we were sitting before the service at Harvest where Franklin was to speak. And when some small talk was going on and I asked the typical preacher’s question, Franklin was due up in about 30 minutes, and I said, “Franklin, what are you preaching on tonight?” And he looked at me and he just said, “Jesus?” And I thought about a comeback and then I realized he wasn’t being cute.
In a family style, wherever he was in the Bible, he was making a beeline for the cross. It was like, “That’s a stupid question, Philip. ‘What are you going to preach?’ Jesus. Isn’t that what we’re meant to preach? Isn’t that what the Bible is all about, calling us to preach?” Great answer. I learned my lesson because there’s a unity to God’s word centered in Christ.
Let’s go for a fourth line of defense, and we need to keep moving here. Fourth line of defense would be this. The multiplicity of manuscripts attesting to the historicity, veracity and integrity of God’s word. Think about this with me for a few moments. I’m not going to get too tactical, but you need to grasp this. We believe in the inerrancy and integrity of Scripture as it is found in the original manuscripts. And since we do not possess the original autographs, critics will cram and try to shake your faith at this point and say, “You cannot trust your English Bible, because you don’t have the original autographs, which you claim are inspired.” What you have is the product of multiple revisions and multiple re-edits. That’s what they say. “And so the version you have is a version of the original, probably overlaid with legend and myth.”
But that’s not true. Don’t buy that argument for one nanosecond, because good biblical criticism, that’s the study of the transmission of Scripture, and the preservation of the biblical text, teach us that God has preserved his word, and God has controlled the transmission of the biblical text and the truth contained therein. And with every discovery of an ancient manuscript, the authenticity, and accuracy, and authority of God’s word is attested. In fact, some of our recent manuscript discoveries have predated the manuscripts that we possessed prior to that by a thousand years. And the discrepancies are infinitesimal.
Hang with me in a quote here from John Blanchard in his accidental book on how to study the Bible. He wants you to have a confidence in the authenticity and the authority of God’s word based upon how many copies of Scripture we have. People question the Bible’s historicity, and yet we have more manuscripts attesting to it as an historical document than any other historical document. And yet we believe them. Listen to this quote: “Of Caesar’s Gallic war, we have nine or 10 good manuscript copies. Of the history of Herodotus, about eight; of the writings of Thucydides, eight manuscripts and a few papyrus scraps; and of the history of Tacticus, who lived at the close of the New Testament era, just two.” But what about the Bible? Taking the Old Testament first, the famous Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in a cave in Israel in 1947 consisted of about, listen to this, 40,000 fragments of biblical passages, making up more than 500 copies of various books of the Old Testament.
From the New Testament, we have some 5,250 manuscripts in the original Greek text. And to say nothing of the 86,000 very early Latin, Syrian and Egyptian translations. The staggering difference is amazing to say the least. No one doubts the Gallic Wars, by the way. Historians today read the writings of Tacticus. And actually, use him to shed light upon New Testament times. We have only dozens of those copies, dozens of those manuscripts. We have hundreds and thousands of manuscripts attesting to the historical text of God’s word. And how close can we get? Some of the manuscripts we have within our hands come as close as 200 years to the original. In fact, one or two probably come within a century of the writing of the Apostle John in 1895.
Don’t doubt God’s word. You see, according to the Book of Romans, man is predisposed to suppress the truth. And they will ignore that which stirs them in the face. They will accept other sources for other documents, but they will question the multiplied, verifiable copies of God’s word. Now, Ravi Zacharias has got it right. In real terms, the New Testament is easily the best attested ancient writing in terms of sheer numbers of documents. The time span between the events and the document, and the variety of documents available to sustain or contradict it. There is nothing in ancient manuscript evidence to match such textual ability and integrity.
What about another line of defense in the battle for the Bible? I believe the Gospel, because my confidence in God’s word is sure based on what we’ve already noted. And I would add to that the prophetic nature and accuracy of the Bible. The prophetic nature and accuracy of the Bible. The Bible is not just a history book in telling us what happened yesterday, but a prophetic book. In Isaiah, chapter 46, I believe it is, in verses 8 through 10, or nine through 10, the Bible declares that God knows the end from the beginning and the things not yet done. And sometimes he declares those things not yet done, as if they were about to happen, because the Bible’s not just a history book pointing back to history, it’s a prophetic book pulling back the curtain on the events of tomorrow.
See, the Bible is centered around the unifying theme of Jesus Christ. And it takes us from the dawn of creation to the sunset of history. And if we’ll fasten our seat belts, it’ll take us from Genesis to Revelation from the beginning of time to the end of time. In fact, those two books have been called the Bookends of the Bible, because they tie everything together. Genesis is history to us, Revelation is prophecy to us. One is in the past, one is in the future, but they tie together, and attest to both the unity and authority, and veracity of God’s word.
Listen to the words of Ray Stedman on that very fact. Someone has rightly observed that the Book of Genesis and the Book of Revelation are like two bookends that hold the entire Bible together. In Genesis, we have the story of the origin of human sin; in Revelation, we have the complete and final victory over sin. Genesis presents the beginning of human history and civilization; Revelation presents the end of both. In Genesis, we learn the beginnings of God’s judgment and his grace towards mankind; in Revelation, we see the awful result of his judgment and the triumph of his grace.
The great themes of these two books are intricately intertwined. It’s a marvelous book. The book of Revelation has been called the Grand Central Station of the Bible. Everything begun in Genesis will drive to an end right there. And we’re told how it all began, and we’re told how it’s all gone the end, and you and I can be rest assured of that fact. God knows the end from the beginning and sometimes gives us the heads-up on what’s coming next. The Old Testament points to the first coming, and the New Testament points to the second coming. And I believe I can trust the prophecy of the Book of Revelation because I can see in the Gospels, and with the backdrop of the Old Testament, that God fulfills his promises and his prophecies. Because the first coming was prophesied centuries before it actually happened. Hang with me and we’ll do a little study here.
I’ve been helped in this by some of the writings of John Phillips. And in one of his books, some prophecy, he makes this argument. If you take just it of the prophecies concerning the first coming centered upon Jesus Christ as promised in the Old Testament, and you put the probability of those happening in one lifetime exactly as they were prophesied 700 years earlier, 400 years earlier, the permutations of that are mind-boggling. Let’s just take it. Let’s take the place of his birth. Prophesied in Micah, right? Let’s take the fact that John the Baptist will be a forerunner. Let’s take the fact that the Bible says that Jesus will enter into Jerusalem on a donkey. Let’s take the fact he’ll be betrayed by a friend for 30 pieces of silver. Let’s take the fact that a field will have to be bought for the one that betrays him. Let’s talk about the fact that he will be silent before his users. Let’s talk about the fact that his enemies will cast lots for him. All those things are prophesied in Micah, and Malachi, and Zechariah, and other parts of the Old Testament.
Just those it prophecies being fulfilled in Jesus Christ is mind-boggling. According to Dr. Peter Stoner, a mathematician, the probabilities against any one man fulfilling just those it prophecies is one chance in a septillion. That’s 10 to the power 21. Let’s visualize it then, Stoner helps us to visualize it. We may imagine a stack of dimes closely packed edge to edge, occupying a space of some 80,000 cubic miles. One of those dimes is marked. The chance of a blindfolded person digging into the huge mass of coins and picking the marked one would be the same chance of the Old Testament prophets at staggered times, not collaborating with each other, foretelling those facts and then those facts being fulfilled in the life of the one spoken about. That’s just it, of 330 prophecies in the Old Testament centered in Jesus Christ as it relates to his first coming and his second coming.
And Joseph spoke kindly to them, and comforted them with his words. And God speaks his words to us and says that in Christ there’s no condemnation. Says if we’ll confess our sins, he’s faithful. And just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, he says that we can be confident of this absent from the body, present with the Lord. We can be confident, we can be sure, because the word of God is the word of God. It claims that claim for itself. Its unity points to that fact. The multiplicity of its manuscripts gives us a confidence relating to that. The authority of Jesus Christ underpins the authority of the word of God. The prophetic nature and accuracy of the Bible is another reason. Here’s the sixth line of defense. And I don’t have a watch on me so you’re in trouble, but I’m down to two more points. We’ll be done. We’ll be done in two.
You ever think about the complementary nature of Scripture in relation to true science? One of the things the Bible gets criticized for, and we’ll see something next Sunday, Wednesday night, with the visit of our friend from answers in Genesis, but it’s often presented as if the Bible is in conflict with science. But that’s not true. Where true science is discovered and declared it will certainly not contradict the Bible. And you and I need to grasp that fact and remind ourselves that we don’t need to give in to those who lambast the Bible as unscientific. First of all, we’ve never claimed the Bible as a science book. The doctrine of Sola Scriptura teaches us that the Bible is a sufficient rule of faith and practice. In all that’s necessary for life, and death, and godliness, is to be found in the word of God.
But Sola Scriptura is not a claim that the Bible contains all knowledge. Or even that it’s an exhaustive catalog of all religious knowledge. The doctrine of Sola Scriptura is the profession that the Bible is sufficient in telling us all that we need to know, and all that God would have us know. We’ve never claimed that the Bible is a science book. But the Bible is not at odds with true science. Remember, as we’ve already established, the primary purpose of the Bible is to reveal the heart and mind of God with regards to man’s redemption. Therefore, it’s not a book focused on scientific data or formula, but the God of creation who reveals himself in Scripture will not contradict the finding of true science. And that’s just a fact.
Let me give you a couple of quick reasons regarding this. What about the law, the first law of thermodynamics? No knowledgeable scientist disputes the first law of thermodynamics, which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. This was discovered independently by two scientists, Joules and Meyers in the year 1842. The Bible, however, makes reference to the idea that no mass or energy has been input into the universe since God finished the creation process. God finished the creation and rested.
What about the second law of thermodynamics? The law of entropy was defined in 1850 by Clausius. Entropy simply stated is the fact that things tend to move from a state of order to disorder. In other words, over time things will decay: stars will burn out, springs unwind, heat dissipates, materials become mixed and commingled. Sounds like a echo of Romans 8, doesn’t it? That the creation groans, as it spirals into decay, wanting be to be renewed and regenerated, once the effects of the fall to be removed.
Every schoolchild is aware of the fact that historically speaking many people held to a flat earth theory. In fact, if you go back to the old maps, there’s dragons and monsters on the edges of the maps, and the idea is that ultimately ships will just fall off the edge of the universe. Columbus himself at that time was censored by the church itself for the idea that the world may be a sphere or a circle, which we know to be the case today, don’t we? But the Bible says in Isaiah 40, verse 22, what? That God sits upon the circle of the earth. It’s not a science book, but it’s not unscientific. That God who created this universe and upholds it with his power understands the law, the first law of thermodynamics. And the God who cursed the earth because of man’s disobedience, death entered, and decay entered is aware of the second law of thermodynamics. He’s aware that the world is circular.
Only comparatively recently has medicine recognized that blood is in fact the life source for all parts of our body. Physicians mistakenly for centuries drained blood from patients in attempt to rid the body of poison. In fact, many believe that contributed to the death of George Washington. But we know today that’s not true. The blood is so important, the circulatory system is so important, carrying oxygen and nutrients to the rest of our bodies. 1500 years before Christ, Leviticus 17:11, what does it say? “Life is in the blood.” The Bible’s not a science book, but it’s not unscientific. Honest science will never contradict the Bible, and the Bible will never contradict honest science.
In fact, there’s a great story surrounding the life of Sir James Young Simpson. He’s the Scottish physician who along with some others discovered chloroform. We’re thankful for that, aren’t we? That we’re not biting down on a piece of wood anymore, and somebody sawing through our legs. I just was in the dentist a week or so ago getting a wisdom tooth out. And I said to Jim when I got home, “The guy who discovered Novocaine should be given the Nobel Peace Prize.” It’s great stuff. And Simpson worked out with some others, a concoction of chemicals, and crystals, and powders, that brought about what we now know as chloroform. But you know what’s interesting? If you go into the history of it, he was actually lambasted by fellow Christians. He was a Christian himself. He was attacked by fellow Christians who claimed that pain was God-ordained, and part of life, and you should just suck it up. Never mind the chloroform. Freedom from pain comes only in heaven. It’s kind of whacked out thinking, isn’t it? But that’s where it was back then.
And so Sir James went to the Bible seeking answers. And he knows sooner opened his Bible and he came to the verse in Genesis, and the Lord God caused that deep sleep to fall on Adam. And he slept. And took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place, carefully studying the text, he wrote an article entitled Answer to the Religious Objections, Advanced Against the Employment of Anesthetic Agents in Midwifery and Surgery. And he ended his paper with these words, quote, “We may rest fully assured that whatever is true on point of fact or humane and merciful in point of practice will find no condemnation in the word of God.” The Bible isn’t a science book, but it’s not unscientific. And as we study it, we gain great confidence.
Last thought very briefly. Here’s the last line of defense. The power of scripture to change man and society. This word has changed lives, and this word has indeed changed lands. The Bible has brought about a change of heart in man, and changed the complexion on the face of society wherever it has indeed been unleashed. Through the preaching of the Bible, the world was turned upside down. Read about it in the Book of Acts, “And people were turned inside out.” One example of that would be the gospel spreading into Thessalonica. And we read that they receive the word not as the words of man, but as it truly is the word of God, and it turned to them from idols to trust and serve the true, and the living God, and the weight for his son from heaven.
Read the book of Acts, the growth of the church changing of lives. The world turned upside down. And it’s a series of sermons stitched together with narrative. You basically have the sermons of Stephen, and Peter, and some of the other apostles. And what they preached in how God used his word, the word that’s living and powerful. Again and again you read in the Book of Acts, “And the word of God was preached and the disciples were multiplied.”
The Bible is a living, and a powerful agent for change. Just look at Europe, the time of the Protestant Reformation. Changed history, changed the face of Europe to this day, although we’re seeing a retreat back into the darkness, sadly. Nevertheless, back then, Martin Luther stood as a spectator to God’s sovereign work and said this, “I did nothing. The word did it all. I simply preached, taught, wrote God’s word. Otherwise, I did nothing. And while I slept and drank Wittenberg beer with Philip and Amsdorff, the word of God weakened all who opposed us.”
I like the story as we close of the South Sea Islander who was engaged in a conversation with a marine during the Second World War and the Pacific battles that took place between America and Japan. And as he watch this, South Sea Islander read his Bible proudly. He said, “You know what? We have outgrown that sort of thing,” to which the native replied, “It’s a good thing we haven’t, or I’d have eaten you.”
The word of God changes lives, and it changes lands, and it tests to its power. “The Bible find me,” said Campbell Morgan. And may it find us when we are gripped by guilt, assaulted by questions, shaken in our faith, when the sunshine of God’s favor is eclipsed by our own questions or life circumstances. May the Bible find us. And may we find the Bible to be true for it is. It is the very word of God. It claims that for itself. Jesus recognized that in his own life. There are many manuscripts that attest to its historicity. Its track record on foretelling the future is unequaled. Lives have been dramatically and wonderfully changed. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Saved without a doubt.
Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for this study tonight. Jesus encouraged us to be like a wise man to build who built his house upon the rock. So we want to build our lives and our trust in you, and our hope for eternity upon the impregnable rock of Scripture. Oh, God, we thank you that the Bible is an anvil upon which many a hammer has been broken. It has answered all its critics questions. It has stood the test of time. And with every archeological discovery, with every new manuscript uncovered, it just speaks to the Bible’s authenticity, authority, and accuracy. We thank you. You have spoken kindly to us in the gospel of Jesus Christ. May we rest our faith there, and may our faith grow, for faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. These things we ask and pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.