Preached by Gregory W. Lee
17 February 2008
I. Introduction
-- turn in Bibles to 2 Timothy 3
-- this morning we are going to finish up our series that we started this year called, "I have a friend who" -- over the course of this series, our friend has experienced some major crises and issues in their life
-- first, they had relationship problems with those around them -- they felt all alone -- they couldn't forgive someone -- they wanted to get an abortion -- and then they wanted to get a divorce
-- most recently, they have had spiritual questions -- they didn't believe believe in God -- they thought all religions led to God -- and now they think the Bible is not true
-- I'm not sure what you thought of this series, but over the past seven weeks, we have been exposed to a gamut of relationship and spiritual issues, and I hope that this series has given you some information or caused you to think a little more on these subjects so that you might be better able to answer your friend's questions when they come to you for advice
-- I think it's important to remember that the focus of the church should not be solely on what happens in the pews on Sunday -- but in our interactions with our friends and family outside the walls of this sanctuary -- as we seek to live our faith and put feet to our faith in the real world
-- if you want to refer back to any of these sermons at any time, I will have them all on the internet by the end of this week -- or just let me know and I'd be happy to print you out or e-mail you a copy -- and, of course, if you ever have a situation where you or a friend of yours needs to talk with someone, please feel free to give me a call
-- the title of my final message in this series is, "I have a friend who thinks the Bible is not true" -- if you would, look with me now at 2 Timothy 3 and let's read vs. 14-17
14. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it,
15. and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
16. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
17. so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
II. Believing in the Bible
-- as this letter from the Apostle Paul to his young friend Timothy points out, believing that the Bible is true is not hard for those of us who were raised in the church -- for those of us who had Godly parents who read the Bible and lived the Bible and who expressed to us the importance and the authority of the Word of God
-- for a lot of us, we believe the Bible is true because our parents or grandparents lived out the commandments in Deuteronomy 6:6-9 -- "These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. -- Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. -- Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. -- Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates."
-- the Bible was impressed on us as children -- the stories of the Bible were talked about at home and when we went to school and when we went about our days -- we were told the great stories of our faith -- and we believed it without question and still do today
-- it's easy to believe and accept the authority of the Bible when you are a kid and see it lived out -- I remember reading about this little boy who picked up the family Bible off the coffee table -- we all used to have those big old family Bibles on the coffee table -- and one day, he picked it up and was flipping through the pages, fascinated at the text and at the pictures in the Bible -- when all of a sudden, something fell out of the Bible and he picked it up and looked at it closely -- it was an old leaf from a sycamore tree that had been pressed between the pages of the Bible and had dried out
-- he called out to his mother -- "Momma, look what I found." -- "What is it?" -- with astonishment in the young boy's voice, he replied, "I think it's Adam's suit"
-- this little boy believed that a leaf in the Bible could be Adam's clothes because he knew the story of Adam and Eve -- he believed that this story was true because he believed that the Bible was true
-- but, not everyone thinks so -- especially in our day and age -- a couple of decades ago, you could assume that everyone in the pews had read the Bible and knew and believed the stories of the Bible -- you could make reference to just part of a story, such as a talking donkey, and know that everyone in the church knew what you were talking about
-- but that's not true today -- a lot of people are not raised like Timothy -- they aren't taught the Scriptures from infancy -- they're not taught the faith as a child -- and in this age of information and misinformation, they just don't believe that a book that's over 2000 years old can be true and trustworthy
-- so, more than likely, at some point in your life, a friend is going to tell you in a conversation that they don't think the Bible is true -- and the question to you is, "How are you going to respond?"
-- I had this situation come up just a few weeks ago -- a student of mine had been watching the History Channel around Christmas as they do all their specials on the Bible and Jesus and Christianity -- and they had aired a show that attempted to discredit the Bible -- he came to me and said, "How can you believe that the Bible is true? -- It's been translated so many times and they left books out for political reasons -- why would you think it's true?"
-- and several years ago I had another student tell me that she didn't believe the Bible was true because other religions had their own scriptures -- the Muslims had the Koran and the Mormons had the Book of Mormon -- "who's to say that that the Bible is true and that the Koran or the Book of Mormon aren't more true?"
-- it is really common for people in our day and age to not believe the Bible is true -- so what do you tell them? -- why do you think the Bible is true?
III. Proofs of the Bible
A. The Proof of Faith
-- most of us believe the Bible is true simply as a fact of faith -- it is something that we believe to be true because we have put our faith and trust into the God who inspired the writers of the various books of the Bible
-- but faith is an intensely personal thing -- your friend isn't going to believe the Bible is true based solely on your faith in God -- based solely on the fact that you tell them that you believe the Bible is true because you believe in God
-- they are probably not going to just accept the Bible is true simply because you say so -- they are going to want to see convincing proofs that the Bible is true
-- one of the greatest proofs of the reliability of the Bible is the power it has to transform lives -- the quickest way to start to convince your friend that the Bible is true is to point to how your own life has been transformed through the power of the Holy Spirit working through you
-- as the evangelist Dwight L. Moody once said, "Out of 100 men, only one will read the Bible for themselves. The other 99 will read the Christian."
-- when your friend looks at your life, can they see a difference because of Christ? -- is there more to your faith than just coming to church on Sunday, or can your friend read the Bible and see Jesus in you?
-- as I mentioned before in this series, in this post-modern society -- especially when you are talking with someone in Generation Y -- they are going to be looking for experiential proof -- for life experiences that show them that the Bible is true instead of just facts and figures
-- at the very least, show them how the lives of the disciples were changed as a result of the presence of Christ -- and how the New Testament is nothing more than an eyewitness account of the transforming power of Jesus in the life of 12 individuals
-- how else can we prove the Bible is true?
B. The Proof of Prophecy
-- one way to prove the Bible is true is to test its claims of truth -- the Bible is filled with prophetic passages where God tells us that certain things are to happen -- one way we can show our friends that the Bible is true is to point them to these passages that have been fulfilled just as God and the Bible said they would
-- for instance, in the Book of Daniel alone, we see God proclaiming that there will be four great empires in the world and sharing with us specific items that are going to happen in these empires -- when Daniel wrote this book in 538 BC, the only great empire was the Babylonian Empire -- but history confirms that three other great empires rose after the Babylonians -- the Media-Persian Empire -- the Greek Empire -- and then the Roman Empire
-- Daniel predicted the fall of the Greek Empire in exacting detail, along with the rise of Antiochus Epiphanes and the desecration of the Jewish temple, which didn't take place until 400 years after Daniel died
-- in fact, because the prophecies of Daniel are so precise and came true exactly like he said, some liberal scholars have tried to make the case that the book of Daniel couldn't have been written in 538 BC but must have been written after the fact -- after all of the things he prophesied came true
-- the Bible prophesied that in the last days, the nation of Israel would exist again -- but no one believed this could happen -- for the past 2000 years, there was no nation of Israel -- the Jews were scattered among all the countries of the world -- but on May 14, 1948, the modern nation of Israel was founded and the prophecy of the Bible was fulfilled
-- tell your friend to compare history to the prophecies of the Bible, and they will quickly come to realize that history bears out the truth of Scripture
C. The Proof of Archeology
-- another way to prove the truth of the Bible is through the archeological record -- the Bible has vast amounts of recorded history -- records of cities and nations -- of kings and queens -- that can be verified through historical and archeological findings
-- for years, scientists have discounted certain Bible stories because there was a lack of outside documentation -- either historical or archeological -- but as more and more archeological studies are conducted in the Holy Land, we are finding almost innumerable archeological confirmation that these stories are true and that the events recorded in the Bible actually happened
-- for instance, the discovery of Taylor's Prism in 1850 confirms the conquest of Jerusalem and the capture of King Hezekiah by the Assyrians -- Taylor's Prism is the written record of Sennacherib, the king of Assyria from 705 to 681 BC -- in this record, he wrote that he attacked Jerusalem and the cities of Judea and took King Hezekiah captive as a bird in a cage
-- what is significant about Taylor's Prism is how closely it parallels the biblical record of this king's life and conquests -- another instance of archeological proof of the Bible
-- as Dr. Nelson Glueck, probably the greatest modern authority on Israeli archeology, has said:
"No archeological discovery has ever controverted a Biblical reference. Scores of archeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or in exact detail historical statements in the Bible. And, by the same token, proper evaluation of Biblical descriptions has often led to amazing discoveries."
D. The Proof of the Structure and Consistency of the Bible
-- one of the more convincing proofs that the Bible is true is the consistency and structure of the Bible -- unlike the Koran or the Book of Mormon, the Bible was not written by a single author -- nor was it written within a time-span of just a few years
-- no, the 66 books of the Bible were written over a period of 2,000 years by about 40 different writers from vastly different backgrounds -- from Jews to Gentiles -- from kings to peasants -- living on three different continents -- yet it is remarkably and clearly one book -- with perfect unity and consistency throughout
-- the individual writers of the Bible had no idea that their writings would be collected into one manuscript along with all the others to form the Bible, but each part of the Bible fits perfectly into its place and serves its own unique purpose as a component of the whole
-- as others have noted, it is the best preserved literary work of all antiquity with over 24,000 ancient New Testament manuscripts discovered thus far -- Compare this with the second best-preserved literary work of antiquity, Homer's Iliad, which only has 643 preserved manuscripts discovered to date
-- as I said earlier, my friend came to me and asked how I could believe the Bible since it had been translated and retranslated so many times and was no where near what the original manuscript had said
-- I mean look at this stack of Bibles -- each one of these is a different translation -- how can we believe that the Bible we read today is the same that was written over 2000 years ago?
-- the relatively recent discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1956 proves that the Bible has remained relatively intact throughout the thousands of years of it's existence
-- contained within the 900 documents making up the Dead Sea Scrolls are parts of every book of the Old Testament except for Nehemiah and Esther -- these are the oldest copies of the Old Testament in existence -- before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest Hebrew translation of the Old Testament dated to about 900 AD -- but the Dead Sea Scrolls were 1,000 years older -- dating back to about 200 BC
-- now, what is important about them is that they are almost word-for-word exactly like the Hebrew translation from 900 AD -- which means that over the period of at least 1000 years, as the Old Testament was translated and hand-copied to make new Bibles, it remained exactly the same
-- yes, there are a few errors -- a few word phrases that are different -- but these are minor and obvious typographical mistakes -- there is no difference in content or form from the oldest manuscript that we have to the Bible that you have before you today
-- think about it like this -- the men who copied the original manuscripts believed this to be the Word of God -- so they took extra care to make sure that it was copied exactly as it was originally written
-- if I'm going to copy an article on gopher tortoises by hand, I'm probably not going to be real careful and make sure that I copy every word exactly like the original -- it's just not that important
-- But if what I'm copying is the Word of God, you better believe I'm going to make sure that I'm going to be extra careful and copy it exactly like the original -- that is what the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls bears out
-- we can trust that our Bible is accurate and believable because it is almost exactly the same, word-for-word, as the oldest manuscripts on record -- not only for the Old Testament, but also for the New Testament
III. Closing
-- I don't have time this morning to go into detail about the canon of Scripture -- why only the books that we have are included in the Bible and other books, such as the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Judas, were left out
-- but in context of our mission today, namely, how do we answer a friend who questions whether the Bible is true or not, I think we have accomplished what we have set out to do
-- other issues like the canon of Scripture can be discussed with your friend at a later date -- the important thing at the start is to share with them why you believe that the Bible that you hold in your hands is true and accurate
-- show them the historical and archeological proof of the Bible -- tell them about the hundreds of prophecies that came true exactly like the Bible said they would -- make sure that they don't fall for the lie that the Bible isn't accurate because it has been translated and copied for thousands of years -- show them the proof that the oldest manuscripts of the Bible are almost word-for-word the same as the copies that we have from 1,000 years later
-- show them the truth of the Bible through your life and through your faith -- you may be the only Bible that someone reads -- and they need to see the truth of God's revelation and the truth of Jesus' offer of forgiveness and a transformed life in you
-- if your life is not reflecting the power of God -- if you can't look at yourself and see how God has transformed you, then I want to invite you to make a change this morning and ask God to come into your life and to change you through the power of the Holy Spirit
-- finally, I think we need to share with our friend a couple of important things -- it's o.k. to doubt the Bible and to not know what the Bible says -- but, it's not o.k. to go through life that way -- we are all called to learn and to grow as we go through life -- and I would suggest that you encourage your friend to take their doubts and their lack of knowledge to the Bible itself -- the only way to learn what the Bible says is to read it and study it and apply it to your life
-- if your friend really doesn't believe the Bible is true, challenge them to study the Bible with you and investigate their doubts themselves -- the Biblical record can stand for itself -- it is the living word of God -- God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness -- and the only way they are ever going to have their doubts removed -- the only way they are ever going to learn more about what the Bible actually says is by studying it themselves
-- that's why I'm such a proponent of in-depth Bible studies -- I have no problem with people not knowing what the Bible says -- that's the purpose of learning -- that's the purpose of studying the Bible -- and we need to provide our friends with the opportunity to learn and to grow in their knowledge of the Bible and of God
-- we have Bible studies going on year-round in this church for the youth and the adults -- and if those don't work for you or your friend, I'd be happy to talk with you about starting a new Bible study at a different time or place -- just let me know
-- let's pray
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