Dear friends:This is part 4 and the final of the series, "The reliability of God's Word." Today's message is a continuation of the proofs that the Bible is divinely inspired and totally reliable in every detail, historically and theologically.
Jim
____________________________________Proof from mathematics Could God have actually left His signature on the book He authored? The evidence suggests so.
More work needs to be done on this subject, and at the current time it is controversial. Nevertheless, many brilliant and credible Bible scholars, mathematicians and computer scientists believe it is true.
Beginning at least as early as the 1800s and through today, gifted people have made exhaustive studies in the original Hebrew and Greek languages of the ancient Bible manuscripts. These researchers claim their results prove that the writings had to have come from an infinite and omniscient Mind.
One person who studied this phenomenon was a Russian immigrant and Harvard graduate, Dr. Ivan Panin, who spent 50 years and accumulated 43,000 pages of notes on the subject before he died in 1942. A more recently published work is Theomatics, by Jerry Lucas and Del Washburn.
Unlike English, in both Hebrew and Greek, the main languages in which God chose to give us the Bible, numbers are not separate characters but are represented by letters of the alphabet. For example, in Greek, the first letter “alpha” (for the English A) is also the number 1. Panin and others have gone to the manuscripts and have assigned the appropriate numerical value for each letter, then they looked for patterns.
The results are mind-boggling -- patterns of numbers that could not have been placed there by humans and probability theory analysis shows that such an elaborate “accident” as impossible. For example, in the first verse of the Bible, Panin found 30 different patterns of the number seven, a number the Bible gives special significance. In English, the verse has ten words, but in Hebrew, only seven. The seven words have exactly 28 (4 X 7) letters. The nouns in the sentence give a combined 777 (111 X 7). The two objects of the verb have seven letters, and so on. The chance of 30 combinations of seven in a seven-word sentence happening accidentally is described as 1 in 33,000,000,000,000.
According to an Associated Press report a few years ago, after subjecting the first five books of the Bible to exhaustive computer analysis, researchers in Israel came to an amazing conclusion. The Torah, or the five books of Moses, had long been assumed by skeptics to be the work of mere men and multiple authors. But Scripture scholar Moshe Katz and computer expert Menachem Wiener of the Israel Institute of Technology analyzed the book's material through sophisticated computer analysis. They discovered an intricate pattern of meaningful words hidden in those books, spelled by letters separated at fixed intervals, the phenomenon called “equidistant letter spacing (ELS).” For example, in the book of Genesis, the first book of the Jewish Torah, the word “Torah” is found repeated at 50-character intervals and “Elohim” (God) at 26-character intervals. It would have been impossible for a mere mortal to have done this, and statistically it could not have happened by chance. Mr. Wiener said, "We need a non-rational explanation. And ours is that the (Torah) was written by God through the hand of Moses."
In all of this, it appears that the omniscient Creator left a persuasive signature on his Word, making the apostle Paul’s statement even more graphic and understandable: “All Scripture is God-breathed.”
Proof from impact
No other book has had the impact for good as has the Bible.
No other book answers the basic questions of life, such as: Where did the world come from? Where did I come from? What is the meaning of life? What happens after I die?
No other book has caused more construction of hospitals, schools and orphanages as has the Bible.No other book champions freedom as does the Bible. Western civilization and concepts of political freedom came from the Bible. For that reason, political and religious despots hate it and try to stamp it out.
No other book has brought comfort, peace, purpose and joy to billions, and radically changed lives, as has the Bible.
No other book proclaims moral law as does the Bible, promises eternal justice for those who disregard it, yet offers a merciful method, if accepted, of acquittal -- the provision being the substitutionary sacrifice of God’s only Son. Former Cambridge University philosophy professor of philosophy Derek Prince calls the Bible “the most logical book in the world.”
If a major attribute of God is love, as the Bible declares, the positive fruits of love that have come forth from the Bible are major evidences that God is the author. People who have committed violence falsely in the name of Christianity were not followers of Jesus Christ, who said, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35).
“Factor X”
Collectively, the above empirical reasons are overwhelming proof that the Bible was written by God through the hands of men. But there is one factor, or reason -- what I call Factor X -- that transcends the empirical. It is “revelational.” It is evidence directly given to an individual’s spirit and mind by the Holy Spirit. God speaks directly to that person and confirms to them that His Word is true and reliable.In fact, the previous eight reasons will not work by themselves. They help, but one cannot believe unless the Holy Spirit confirms and places His truth within us.
For example, the Bible says:
No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3).
No one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him (Luke 10:22).
Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven (Matthew 16:17, KJV).
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day (John 6:44, NIV).
Christianity is unique among religions in that it is the only one where faith comes only by “revelation” from the Creator. Other religions are based on false legends and the traditions of men, often culturally driven.
In an article titled, “How do you know the Bible is true?” David Kupelian, vice-president and managing editor of WorldNetDaily wrote:
"Every truly sincere person ('sincere' as in humble-before-your-Creator, not as in so-deluded-you-can't-see-your-delusions) there is an inner witness, a wordless knowing, a quiet confirmation of all truth, including the Bible. Indeed, when all is said and done, you know the Bible is true because you just know deep down that it is true. It's a matter of quiet inner revelation, direct to your heart and mind from the source of all true revelation.
"If you do not believe the Bible, it is not because you do not have enough supporting facts. There are more than you need. It is because you have chosen to block out that revelation from God.
"What will cause a person to block out this revelation from God? There are several, such as: wrong motives, looking for an argument, not really seeking Him, holding on to some sin, seeking justification for a sin, pride, and many others."
The late A.W. Tozer says it very bluntly:
"I do not believe anyone has ever rejected Jesus Christ on philosophical grounds. Israel did not reject the Lord because of philosophical reasons. Israel's rejection was for moral reasons. The man who continues in his rejection of Christ has a pet sin somewhere -- he’s in love with iniquity. He rejects Jesus on moral grounds, and then hides behind false philosophy -- philosophical grounds…. When we fall in love with our sin, we can imagine and manufacture 10,000 syllogisms to keep us away from the cross. A blind man can argue that there is no sunshine, but when he gets his sight, the sunshine floods in! How wonderful it is that when a person gives up his sin and puts his pride under his feet and looks at the light, the whole body and mind are flooded with light. I have talked with people who have come out of rationalism and atheism and all the rest -- and they smile at you with clear eyes and say, "Oh, it is wonderful now; the light has flooded in."
If you want to believe and know the truth about God, His Son Jesus Christ, and God’s plan for history, simply go to God with a humble and repentant heart and ask. Jesus said:
So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened (Luke 11:9-10).God also said:
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart (Jeremiah 29:13).
Each of the various philosophical arguments for God’s existence, such as the argument from design (the complex design proves an intelligent Designer), and the argument for first cause (that all effects must be ultimately traced to an intelligence that was the first cause of all effects), is conclusive enough, but collectively, all the arguments are absolutely overwhelming. Conclusion
The same logic applies to the Bible. Each of the above individual arguments is enough, but collectively they overwhelmingly reveal that the Bible is clearly the authoritative Word of God, totally reliable and true.
The information presented in this book is so revolutionary and radical, it is absolutely necessary that its authoritative basis, the Bible, be constantly clear in the mind of the reader. Otherwise, you could not believe it and receive God’s promises.
Believe it.
Suggested reading:
Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Josh McDowell (Nashville, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999) (also, New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, 1999).
The Case for Christ and The case for Faith, Lee Stroebel (Grand Rapids, Zondervan Publishing House, 1998, 2000 respectively).
Why I Preach the Bible is Literally True, W.A. Criswell (Nashville, Broadman Press, 1969).
What If The Bible Had Never Been Written? D. James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe (Nashville, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998).___________________________
This four-part series is excerpted from the book, THE POWER! by James Bramlett (Xulon Press, 2003), available free online at http://www.choicesforliving.com/book/the_power.htm