The Bible is a Supernatural Book

RV217-01

Well, Phil Donahue was at it again this week. He had a program which dealt with people who have had a near-death experience, and returned from the other side to tell what they had discovered. For those on the program who claimed to have had such an experience, it was irrefutably real. For those on the program who had seen the great light and the great peace, they were confident that's what has happened to them.

There was an atheist on the program representing the American Atheist Society. He discounted their experiences as hallucinations – the result of people who were in a bad physical condition, and were very ill. In proving his point, he pointed out the story of the rich man and Lazarus in the gospel of Luke. He had to laugh a little bit that he should be, of all people, quoting Scripture. But he pointed out that in that record, there's a great gulf between those who are on the heaven side and those who are on the hell side, and there's no passage between them. He argued that the Scripture here taught that no one can cross over the gulf of death to return to the living. He was misinterpreting, but his point was that that Gulf is death, and you can't cross over it to come back to report anything.

Well, when he mentioned the Bible, and when he mentioned this incident in the gospels, Phil Donahue went into his predictable response, and had a catatonic fit on the spot. At the very mention of the Bible, it's like holding a cross in front of Dracula. I mean, he goes to pieces. He comes apart at the seams. He cannot stand somebody referring to the Bible. He immediately interjected. He said, "No, no, let's not start talking about the Bible. If you do that, pretty soon there's going to be nothing but disagreement here, because everybody's going to start bringing the Bible into the discussion.

Well, it was a strange objection because the whole inane human viewpoint contributions that he was getting from his audience was nothing but one mass of disagreements and contradictions. There was certainly no agreement in what these people had to say. At least when the Bible came in, you had some kind of an authority.

Well, there was a Christian man on the panel, and he had obviously some knowledge of Scripture. He ignored Donahue, and he pointed out to the atheist that the gulf which separated the saved from the unsaved, in hell and in paradise in verse in Luke 16, was a separation between those headed for paradise and those headed for home (those who were in paradise, and those who were in hell. This Christian man also emphasized, obviously to Donahue's distress, that the rich man did not want his five evil brothers to end up in torments as he was, and that he wanted to have some kind of confirmation from the dead sent to them. In other words, the rich man was asking for a near-death experience to confirm to the brothers that everything that they laughed at, and which he had joined with them in laughing at, was really true.

The rich man, the Christian pointed out, was told that the brothers had the Old Testament Scriptures from which they can learn about salvation from the hell side of Hades, and entrance into the paradise side. Therefore, his point was that the Bible, which Mr. Donahue wanted to dismiss, was very important and most pertinent to the issue of life after death.

The Christian man also warned his audience that the Bible teaches that Satan is a liar, and that he parades as an angel of light so that people believe him instead of the clear revelation of Scripture. So, his point was to be cautious about near-death experience reports, because this is an area where Satan can deceive in order to give people the impression that when they come across, it's all light and happiness. This is a delusion of Satan. The reports can lead a person away from the very thing that he should be looking for – what the Bible says.

Last summer, there was in the city of Chicago, a great convocation of the religions of the world. They had gathered to share with one another their various paths to God. And none of you (not a one of you) heard any reports on this on the nightly TV news. A cone of silence descended over this mongrel convocation, which, in fact, was laying the groundwork for a world religion which will come to its fruition in the tribulation. This is another one of the evidences of the very thing we're talking about and reading about here in Scripture. Now, at this convocation of all the religions of the world, you had the witch doctors dressed in all of their paraphernalia. You had the witches with their long flowing robes. You had everything here that is associated with Nimrod's religion. You had the idolatry, and you had the demonic power. You had the concept of attaining godhood. You had the concept of sex worship to get in contact with the gods. Everything was there. The religion of Nimrod was once more demonstrated to be very clearly present.

One man that the TV people interviewed claimed to be a Christian, and he said that he had some reservations about the concept that there's only one way to heaven. He argued that Christians comprise only 20% of the world's humanity. Would God send 80% into hell? Then he said, "Though I must admit that the Bible teaches that there is only one way for a person to go to heaven – through Jesus Christ." Well, immediately, it was evident to me that his reservation about the clear Bible doctrine of salvation through Christ alone, and most of mankind, with its different paths to heaven, will not be lost, simply revealed again his doubt about the divine inspiration and the final authority of the Bible.

This is such an important issue today. Increasingly, the battle is over dismissing the Bible. Donahue is just one little example of this recoiling from anything that the Bible has to say. Here was this man who claimed to be a Christian, who also wasn't sure that the Bible was telling the truth. I wondered: on what basis could he then think that he was a Christian? Maybe the Bible is lying about the gospel of grace salvation. Maybe somebody interjected that, and it's not true at all.

These two incidents clearly illustrate the battle which is being waged by unbelievers against the absolute divine authority of the Bible – seeking to discredit the Bible by implying that it is unreliable, and that it incorporates the misconceptions of its writers. Unbelievers are downright irritated by the Bible's exposé of their evil ways and of its exaltation of Jesus Christ as the preeminent one of the universe, and the only one through whom a human being can attain eternal salvation. That does not set well with the Muslims; that does not set well with the Jews; that does not set well with the religions of the east; and, that does not set well with a system of works salvation such as Roman Catholicism, which recognizes Christ as Savior, but contaminates it by adding their human works. The Bible is very clear that you can't add your human works.

So, these systems do not like the Bible. The Roman Catholic Church has dismissed the Bible, and instead, it falls back upon what it calls the teaching authority of the church. If you want to know what God thinks, you don't go to the Bible, but you go to the papacy and the hierarchy.

However, even believing Christians, I've noticed, are willing to compromise their doctrinal principles, which would frustrate the desires of their old sin natures at some point. These Christians sit in church, and some of the smarter ones are taking notes and jotting things down, because they realize that they don't have omniscient minds, so they need to write down the results of enormous hours of research, and of thinking, and of background, and of experience, for them to read over later, and to ponder, and to seal in their hearts. Yet, having written down a doctoral principal, at some point in time when it is frustrating to what their sin nature wants to do, they will ignore the doctrinal principle.

So, what are those Christians telling me? They, too, are telling me that they're not sure that the Bible has to be obeyed. They don't want to say that. So, what they do is they reinterpret some plain statement of Scripture. What they do is exactly what Paul said people would do. They would go in the final days, in which we live, to find themselves preachers who would: "Scratch their itching ears by telling them what they would like to hear to justify their negative response to a principle of biblical truth which they have been taught."

So, we have it both from unbelievers and believers – this coolness toward the Scriptures. It's crazy – this reservation toward the Word of God.

Now, we are biblical Christians must indeed know the basis for our acceptance of the Bible as the supreme authority that speaks for God. We must know the basis for our belief that it is an inerrant book, and therefore reliable in all it says, because we are under severe attack for that belief. The Lord Jesus Christ is right when He says that the Scriptures cannot be broken. And the reason they cannot be broken is because the Bible is truth.

In Revelation 17, we have found that God moves the minds of the ten kings of the confederacy under the antichrist to decide to yield their kingdoms to the control of the antichrist. This is the mind of God on the matter. So, it also becomes the mind of the kings. It is the mind of God for these kings to yield their kingdoms to the control of the antichrist. This political union, we were told in verse 17, is to continue in force through the tribulation until: "The Words of God should be fulfilled."

There is no question that the antichrist and his kings are going to suffer the judgments pronounced by the words of God against them, and against their spiritually rebellious followers. God's words are going to be fulfilled.

So, when an unbeliever dismisses something that the Bible says, it doesn't make it false. It's going to be fulfilled. When a Christian compromises on some biblical statement, and twists it around to give himself some slack to do something that is evil that he wants to practice, that doesn't mean that it's not going to come to pass. God's Word is going to be fulfilled. When it tells you how you should act as a husband, and you don't play your role, God's Word is going to be fulfilled. You will have tears, and you will have grief. When the Word of God tells you how to act as a wife, and what your role is, and you refuse to do that, you will come to tears, and you will come to grief, because God's word is going to be fulfilled. When your children refuse, perhaps because of your failure to have trained them properly, to be obedient to the Word of God, and to show a respect for that which is the truth, they will come to grief. When a nation thumbs its nose at the principles for establishment of government operation, the nation will come to grief. God's Word is going to be fulfilled.

How can we be so foolish? How can we be like a Donahue who treats the Scripture as unintelligible irrelevancy, made up of confusing and contradictory human ideas? That's what he thinks. But, of course, he is ignorant of the Bible. He doesn't know what's in it. He knows what people tell him is in it, or what he thinks is in it. But he does not know how simple and easy to understand the Bible is. He's dead wrong because the Bible is the Word of God. It is not unintelligible. And the greater frame of reference you have, the easier it is to understand. It is not irrelevant. It is not contradictory. It is not confusing. It is orderly, and it is clear. But Donahue is a Roman Catholic. He has never been pointed to the Bible as his authority. He has also always been pointed to the authority on the human level in the form of the church; its Pope; and, its hierarchy.

So, while it is easy on the one hand to understand that unbelievers dismiss the Bible as being the final authority in spiritual matters, it is appalling how many instructed Christians (not just uninstructed, but instructed Christians) can treat the Bible in the same way at times when it serves their sinful desires. Be sure your sins will find you out. Any violation of a biblical principle is a sin, and it will find you out, because, as Revelation 17:17 says, "The Words of God will be fulfilled."

All Scripture is Inspired by God

Divine good works is what stores treasures in heaven. We are not wrong in placing such an emphasis upon people attending church services to be instructed in doctrinal principles, for the very simple fact that it is that instruction that prepares a person, by what he learns, for being reproved, for being corrected, and for being trained in what's right so that he can be equipped as a soldier of Christ, to serve Him and produce good works. We see the reason that most Christians are wasting their lives. They will come to heaven; they will stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ; they have attended church every Sunday; and, they will find that they have wasted their lives, for the simple reason that they never were instructed, even though they sat in church, in the Word of God.

So, this passage tells us that Bible revelation is God-breathed. So, it is God's opinion. If it is God breathed, it is God's opinion. Don't let anybody intimidate you by saying, "Well, that's just what you think about the Bible. That's just what you believe." It's not that. The Bible is clear. It's easy to understand, and it is God's opinion.

Therefore, you cannot simply dismiss it and say, "Well, I don't believe that's true." It is true. The Bible content did not originate with the writers of Scripture as their human opinions. The Bible authors were supervised by the Holy Spirit all the way.

The Bible was Recorded Accurately

For this reason, Jesus could say, "The Scriptures cannot be broken." And we cannot evade what is in Scripture for this very reason: because it is inerrant.

Today, the problem is that the Bible doctrine of inspiration has been tampered with. We are suffering from tampered signposts. The Bible doctrine of inspiration places every one of us at a vital crossroad in life. Either you're going to accept this (that it speaks for God), or you're going to reject it. You're going to read the Bible with the attitude that there are no errors in it. Therefore, what it says is what you must obey; or, you will reject that. You need some guidance on how you're going to decide that. You may take the road of an inspired, inerrant Bible from God as being a final authority in spiritual things. Or you may take the road of a Bible from men, written by men, and therefore filled with errors, but nevertheless, it is a worthy message, but it has no ultimate authority. This is happening today.

I listened some time ago on TV to one of the prominent ministers of one of the largest churches in Irving. The whole point of his sermon was how anybody could believe that everything in the Bible was absolutely true. That was the sermon. He kept arguing how one must bring consideration into what the Bible says. One must understand it and apply it to the situation of the times in which we live. And when you're finished with that, anybody in that service went out and found that somebody had twisted the signpost from what God pointed to, and said, "This is the truth (an inerrant Scripture), and twisted the signpost. That preacher said that the Bible is relative truth, and you must think your way through to find what is true (at least, what's true for you), and you must be ready to discard the rest. You must not object to somebody who has a different moral standard than you do, because that's truth to them. The problem is deciding which road leads to truth. The signposts have been tampered with by Satan.

During World War II, Hitler drew all of his forces together at the end of the war for one last great push. The allies were on the road going toward Germany, and he came up with the concept of one monstrous counterattack. At first, he put it together secretly. He put together the forces that were going to be involved (the military units). Finally, the day came, and they kicked off what became known as the Battle of the Bulge, to make a breakthrough between the allied forces – to split them, and to make a break back to the ocean. He almost succeeded. It would have been an enormous disaster to the war effort had he succeeded. There was one thing that they did that so contributed to the early success. And I remember how appalling it was to all of us to see how successful it was.

I was in I was in Quantico, Virginia at the time, at the Officer Candidate School, and on the situation map of the battle line in Europe, every day we could see this line bulging and getting closer to the sea. It looked like they were going to make the breakthrough. One of the ways they helped themselves was by changing the signposts as the allies came thundering in. General Patton turned his whole army 180 degrees, and made a dash for the South in amazing speed to break the back of this offensive. They were constantly being plagued, as they looked at the road signs, and they were following wrong roads, because the Germans had changed the signs, and they pointed them in the wrong direction. So the units were bogging down; wasting time; and, running into each other. It was a clever ruse.

That's what the devil has done with the issue of the authority of the Bible. In the past, it used to be that all questions about what to believe in spiritual matters were settled by quoting the Bible. That was the unquestioned authority, and even unbelievers respected when the Bible said something. They didn't argue that it wasn't true. They just didn't want to believe it. They just didn't want to act upon it, but they couldn't dismiss it.

However, today, Satan has changed the signposts to tell people that the Bible has mistakes in it; that the Bible is not reliable; and, that the Bible was written by fallible men who incorporated their fallible ideas. So, today, the road to spiritual truth is identified as the road which leads to the rejection of the inspiration of the Bible.

There was a time when the signpost of spiritual truth pointed to inspiration. Now, it points in the opposite direction, away from inspiration. How is this done? Because inspiration is reinterpreted. Suddenly, that preacher that I heard on TV, if you were to ask him: "What does the Bible mean when it claims to be inspired?" He would say, "Well, it means that it's an inspiring book. It's like when Shakespeare says something, and it's a great inspiration. What Shakespeare says is inspiring." However, it is not the inerrant truth of God. So, all of a sudden, something that you read in the comic strip "B.C." has many inspiring comments, and you are inspired, and Scripture is reduced to that level.

Well, the Bible itself everywhere claims to originate with God, and therefore we must deal with that. Why do men believe Satan, and reject the claims and the evidences of the Bible itself? Why would you, in effect, believe Satan by dismissing some doctrinal principle when it comes between you and your ambitions?

To begin with, the natural man, the Bible tells us, is spiritually blind, so light from the Bible does not register with him. He needs to have his eyes opened to spiritual truth, and that cannot be done until one is born again. The reason Phil Donahue talks the way he does is because he's an unsaved man. His eyes are blinded, and spiritual truth does not register with him.

2 Corinthians 4:3-4 says, "But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case, the god of this world (Satan) has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God. On every mind, Satan has placed spiritual scales. Eyes are blinded. This is why you can speak the gospel to someone, and they simply don't get it. They don't respond until God the Holy Spirit takes the scales off, and enables them to see it. So, nothing in the Bible makes sense to people with these blinded eyes.

1 Corinthians 2:14: "But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. He cannot discern them because they are spiritually appraised." So, here we have a clear statement that the natural man (I don't care what his IQ is) cannot understand the Bible.

So, the Christian's eyes are different eyes for the fact that they have been opened. They can grasp spiritual principles. The Holy Spirit is the one who persuades us of the infallible truth and the divine authority of the Bible. It just dawns on us, so to speak. We just are impacted with the realization that here in the Bible, we are listening indeed to God. So, the Christian, because he is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, has an internal testimony that the Bible is the Word of God, which unbelievers don't have. You can never make an unbeliever accept that. There is nothing you could say to a Donahue that would change his mind for respect toward what the Bible has to say. That's why it poses no problem for Donahue to read the early chapters of the book of Genesis on the creation of Adam and Eve, ... and then, then, through his kind of understanding, turn around and write a book called The Naked Ape, in which he describes how man has come up through a process of evolution, and is nothing but an exalted animal.

Now, because he is in public view and public hearing, and he has millions of dollars, people believe that he must know the truth. He does not know the truth. He dismisses Genesis, and instead, he arrogantly says, "Let me tell you folks how this happened," and people buy his book. Here's a man who has changed the signpost, and misdirected people away from an inerrant Bible that speaks for God, to a Bible full of mistakes. That's only the work of the illumination of God through Scripture that ultimately enables us to say, "Yes, the Bible is the Word of God." Only God can identify His Word to us – not our human reasoning.

The unbeliever scoffs at the doctrine of inspiration. He scoffs at it because of his liberal reasoning. It goes like this: The Christian says, "The Bible is inspired." Why? "Because the Bible claims to be inspired." He is asked, "Well, why do you believe this claim?" He says, "Because the Bible is inspired, so it's true in its teachings." The unbeliever bursts out laughing and says, "That's circular reasoning. That doesn't mean a thing. You set that the premises, and you believe this in a circle. You've reasoned in a circle."

It is important, however, to notice that the Bible never says that it is not inspired. It is important to notice that the Bible is not silent about being inspired. If either of these were the case, you can be sure that the liberal would protest that we are claiming too much for the Bible when we say it is inspired – more than the Bible claims for itself. If the Bible did not claim to be inspired, or if the Bible did not say that it was not inspired (which it does neither of those), the liberal would say, "You're claiming too much for the Bible." The Bible is not silent on the matter of inspiration, and the Bible does not say that it is not inspired.

So, in effect, what the liberal is saying is that he is treating the Bible's claim to inspiration as a falsehood. That's where he's starting. Why not view the Bible as being truthful? The Christian is not so illogical. He is not simply reasoning in a circle to create something that he wants to believe. He is basing this upon the fact that the Bible inspiration is clearly and extensively confirmed in the Bible itself. Let me show you.

The Bible is a Supernatural Book

So, is the Bible a supernatural book? That's the point of the debate. The argument is that the Bible is just a book that you could have produced. Suppose you wrote a book. What would you produce? You'd produce the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon has been corrected over 4,000 times because it had so many contradictions and mistakes interjected into it. It is constantly being revised in order to try to get the thing so that it's consistent with itself. How did that happen? Well, Joseph Smith (who knew the Bible very well) was fully capable of writing a book like the Book of Mormon (he had the literary ability to do that), but he did not have the omniscient hand of God guiding him so that he did not contradict himself from one of his books to the next.

The Supernatural Characteristics of the Bible

1. The Unity of the Bible

   The first one is the unity of the Bible. The Bible has a continuity in its message with no contradictions. That's amazing. Why? Because it is 66 books in a variety of forms: some history; some poetry; and, some inspiration. The Bible was produced by 40 authors. It took 1,500 years to do it. Some of them, obviously, never met each other, and some of the writers didn't even see each other's books. Yet, here you have a message that starts in Genesis, and goes systematically all the way through Revelation to a capstone of completion. And nowhere is there anything of a contradiction in it. There is no book of any religion of the world that remotely approaches the unity of the Bible.

2. The Fulfillment of Bible Prophecy

   Another supernatural characteristic of the Bible is the fulfillment of Bible prophecy. I put a great deal of emphasis on this. This is one thing the religions of the world cannot produce. About 25% of the Bible was prophecy when it was written. A lot of that prophecy has been fulfilled, and when it has, it has been fulfilled in detail; and, furthermore, in all the details. All the little details of a prophecy have always been fulfilled, and fulfilled exactly as predicted.

   The accuracy of Bible prophecy is something that could not be produced by mere chance or human insights, especially when they are long-distance prophecies about something is going to happen 800 or 1,000 years in the future. The religions of the world never attempt long-range predictions. The Bible says, "If anybody ever makes a prediction for God (as speaking for God), and that prophecy is not fulfilled, he is a false prophet; he is to be executed; and, what he says is not to be believed. The Bible is very explicit that if you claim to speak for God, and you speak in terms of a prophecy, and it's not fulfilled, you are a false prophet. Most prophets prefer making long-range predictions, so that long after they're dead, they're gone.

   Joseph Smith got carried away with his supposed ability to speak for God, and in one of his prophecies, he declare that before the generation of Mormons which was living in his day, the New Jerusalem would be established here on the earth. That New Jerusalem of the book of the Revelation would be established here on this earth in a magnificent temple to be built at Independence, Missouri, the home of Harry Truman. Would God put His New Jerusalem where Harry Truman came from? That's hard to believe. Independence, Missouri was going to be the site of the New Jerusalem, and they have the property. It's called the temple site. It's not owned by the Salt Lake City Mormons, but by a revision group that is in opposition to them. The Salt Lake City group has been trying to buy that temple site, probably so that they put a temple on it to fulfill this prophecy.

   Well, everybody who was part of the Mormon community in Joseph Smith's day is now dead, and the temple site is not there, and the New Jerusalem is still not there. I just love telling this to Mormons, especially the bicycle boys, when I can catch up with them. They're not prepared for this. They don't know what to say. But I say to them, "It tells me that Joseph Smith lied. He made a prophecy very clearly, and you know it. It's in one of your sacred writings, Doctrines and Covenants, proposition number something. You know it's there, and that makes him a false prophet. That makes him one who is condemned by God. Why are you going around here on your bicycles representing a false prophet?"

3. The View of Sin in the Bible

   A third factor of the inspiration (the supernatural characteristic) of the Bible is the view of sin in the Bible. Sin is not so bad in the Book of Mormon. When God says, "It's a sin to have more than one wife," it's not only a sin, but it is unwise in many ways. But when God says it's a sin to have more than one wife, Joseph Smith's book says it's OK. You can have more than one wife. When Muhammad wrote the Koran, he says, "You can have as many as four wives, if you can afford it. And if you don't like one of them, you can trade her in for a new model." That is just one small example of sin that is tolerated in various ways in the religious books of the world. Why? Because man is blind to his own sinful nature.

   So, when he writes about himself, he doesn't present himself as totally depraved. That's what the Bible says about man. "Totally depraved" means that you can't take one step toward God. Your fingers can walk through the Yellow Pages, but you can't take one step toward God because of your depravity. You can't approach Him in any way whatsoever. Man's solution for sin is always some self-effort of good works and man's morals. Have we ever learned this in our day? When man is left to himself to create his moral principles, they're always far below the biblical standards. Man very quickly descends to a barnyard animal. That's the morality of man when he's left on his own. However, look at the high state and calling, and the noble treatment of the human being who is in Christ that you find in the Bible. It is a totally different attitude of sin.

4. The Overall Concepts of the Bible

   Then there's just the overall concepts of the Bible. It has a supernatural element. When you read the Bible, it's like stepping from a gloomy, frightening cave into a bright sunshine. Man, on his own, practices a lot of superstitious polytheism against the Bible's refined and dignified monotheism. There are great doctrines that are of thrilling impact, like the Godhead – the concept of the Trinity. In a limited way, we grasp it. That's the magnificence of what you find in Scripture. The ancient pagan writers always produce grotesque pictures of their gods. Modern man has degenerated into the unscientific picture of evolution.

   "Contains"

   The revelation breathed out by God was preserved in full accuracy by the Holy Spirit as the writers wrote down what they believed. At the end of the 19th century, the religious liberals outright rejected the inspiration of the Bible, and they express their rejection by the phrase, "The Bible contains the Word of God. They always use terms to fool people. On the surface, you as a Christian might say, "Yes, I agree with that." But this is not true. The Bible does not contain the Word of God – the Bible is the Word of God. The reason they say that it "contains" the Word of God is that they have had a lot of it to which they have said, "That's not the Word of God." Liberals meant that some part of the Bible was not true. This deceptive phrase to con Christians into thinking that liberals were not as bad on the doctrine of inspiration as they were being made out to be.

   Neo-Orthodoxy Liberalism

   In the 20th century, we had a thing called neo-orthodoxy liberalism that tried to change this a little bit by saying that the Bible is a record of God's revelation. The liberal meant by this that the Bible was merely the recordings of the religious experiences of people, but it didn't always present statements of truth. Neo-evangelicalism began basically in biblical Christian circles.

   So, the writers of the Bible were presented as people were just keeping diaries of their religious experiences, and not transmitting messages from God. So, the option is that either the Bible is a worthless fraud, and that Jesus Himself was a deluded martyr who was mistaken about this; or else, the Bible is the truth of God, and that it is the written Word of God in all inerrancy, and that it is exactly what Jesus claimed it was. If the Bible writers are so wrong about the source of their message, for what reason should we believe what they tell us about God, or about sin, or about salvation? If the writers tell us that their message came from God, and that He protected them as they wrote it, and that's not true, then nothing they have written is worth anything. How can we believe in Jesus Christ when he says, "The Scriptures cannot be broken?"

   Unbelievers today in general simply reject the truthfulness of the Bible and of the existence of God. Scriptural morality is considered inadequate for our century. Consistent unbelievers reject the Bible entirely, and they ignore supernatural evidence.

What is the Ultimate Proof?

Here's the case of Peter. Matthew 16:15: "He said them (Jesus to the disciples), 'But who do you say I am?' And Simon Peter answered and said, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' Jesus answered and said to him, 'Blessed are you, Simon Barjonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven." Peter had no vision. He heard no voices from heaven. There was an internal work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of Peter, and it was caused by the truth about the deity of Jesus Christ dawning on him. That belief was produced in his mind by God.

So, you and I must have a certain appreciation toward the work of God that enables us to accept the fact that the Bible speaks for him. We cannot compliment ourselves for that bit of insight. Peter is not conscious of this internal convicting work of the Holy Spirit. He's listening to what Jesus said. He's watching Him in action. He sees His miracles, all of which we have recorded. And it just dawns on him that this is a God-man, as it dawns on us that the Bible speaks for God. We learned the Word of God in various situations, and it dawns upon us.

Even Abraham could accept the truth of God's revelation only on the basis of God's authority. In Hebrews 6:13, we read, "For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself." God said, "I take an oath on Myself, Abraham, that what I'm promising to do for you and your descendants is going to come to pass. How did Abraham know that was true? Only because of who God was. When he heard God's message, he accepted it as truth. It is sin that has caused the human mind to resist and to reject the divine truth of Scripture, as we read in 1 Corinthians 2:14. Man is not stupid. He is just, by his nature, innately resistant, and he will actually change the truth of God into a lie.

Romans 1:18 tells how that's what man did, and then he degenerated into the sins of homosexuality; worshiping of animals; and, everything down the line. Our minds, in their unregenerate state, are the enemy of God. Our minds, by nature, are abnormal, and our depraved intellects have to be remade by the Holy Spirit through regeneration. Then we can grasp the truth of the Word of God.

So, it's going to be impossible for any of us, by logic or by argument, to convince Donahue that he's wrong about the authority of the Bible. It is necessary that we explain it; that we defend the doctrine of inspiration; and, that we declare the testimony of the truth as the Holy Spirit witnesses to us. But that's it. God has to make it clear that the Bible is His word.

There are certain external truths to the reliability of the Bible, but they can only serve to strengthen our faith. They won't make it. A Christian may not always be able to answer the attacks against the Bible, but he knows what he believes.

I remember a man one time saying, "Someone said to me, 'How do you know you're saved?'" He said, "Because I was there when it happened." It dawned on him when he believed. That was a good answer.

A Christian can ultimately follow the course of the man who was born blind. He rejected all the proofs of logic that the rabbis were giving to him, and he accepted the proof of the effect on his own life. In John 9:26-34, the man born blind finally said, "I don't know how to answer all you scholars, but I know one thing: whereas I was blind, now I can see.

We who have had we who have been transformed by the Word of God have the reality of this evidence – the power of God in the life of a person who knows doctrines; who believes it; and, who acts upon it. Do not be intimidated by the world's rejection of the Bible, but stand tall and straight and confident, because God has taken you into His confidence. That's why you know this. He has not taken the world into His confidence, and they are ignorant of this. They're wrong. We are right.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1993

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