HOW WE CAN KNOW THAT THE BIBLE IS FROM GOD
Presented by
Justin Schumacher
There are many different religions in the world today. Some of them even have their own special books that tell them what to believe. For example, people in the Mormon Church have The Book of Mormon. And people who are Muslims have the Koran. But these books were written by men, not by God. No other religion has a book like the Bible. It is the only book in the world that was written by God. And that is not just something we believe. It is something we can prove! That is what I want to talk to you about today. My sermon is titled, “How We Can Know that the Bible is from God.”
The first thing we need to know about the Bible is that claims to be from God. The books of most other religions do not much such a claim. But the Bible does. The apostle Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3:16, “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” The word “inspired” comes from a Greek term that means “God breathed.” Paul’s point was that God Himself “breathed” the words of the Bible. Those words did not come from men. Rather, they came from God. In fact, within the Bible we find statements like “God said” or “These are the words of the Lord” or “God spoke” more than 2,700 times. So, yes, the Bible does claim to be the Word of God.
But is it? Yes, it is. And we can know that it is. One of the things that shows us that the Bible is God breathed is that there is no other book like it in the whole world. The Bible was written over a period of 1,600 years by more than 40 different men to whom God gave His words. These men came from all walks of life. Moses was a shepherd. David was a king. Nehemiah was a cupbearer for a king. Peter was a fisherman. Matthew was a tax collector. And Luke was a physician. Many of these men never even knew each other. Yet they produced a book that has a single, unified theme. The main message of the Old Testament is that “someone is coming.” The main message of the New Testament is that “someone has come.” That “someone” was Jesus Christ. Every book in the Bible fits together perfectly—just like a key fits perfectly into a lock. Could all of this have happened just by accident? No, it could not have! The unity of the Bible shows that it came from God.
There are many other things within the Bible which prove that it is from God. But the one thing that the Bible has that no other book in the world has is fulfilled prophecy. A prophecy is something that predicts the future. No one can predict the future except God. So, to prove that the Bible is from Him, God gave many prophecies to the men who wrote down His words. Listen to what the apostle Peter said about this when he wrote: “The prophets did not think these things up on their own, but they were guided by the Spirit of God” (2 Peter 1:21). God’s Spirit gave God’s words to the prophets. And many of their prophecies were about God’s Son Jesus. Consider the following examples:
1. Moses prophesied in Genesis 3:15
that Christ would be born only of
the seed of woman. We know from Matthew 1:21-22 that Christ was indeed born of
a virgin.
2. Moses prophesied in Genesis 49:10
that Christ would be of the tribe of
3. In Micah 5:2, the Bible predicted that
Jesus would be born in
4. Isaiah 40:3 predicted that someone
would come before Christ in order to announce His arrival. Matthew 3:1-3 tells
us that John the Baptist was that person.
5. Psalm 41:9 predicted that Jesus
would be betrayed by a friend, and Zechariah 11:12 tells us that He would be
betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. John 13:18 and Matthew 26:15 tell us that
Christ’s friend Judas did betray
him—for 30 pieces of silver.
6. Isaiah 50:6 and Isaiah 53:5 tell us that
Christ would be spit upon and beaten. Matthew 27:30 tells us that He was.
7. Isaiah 53:9 predicts that Christ
would be buried in a rich man’s tomb. We learn from Matthew 27:57 that He was.
There are over 300 prophecies about Jesus in the Old Testament. And every one of them came true! The Book of Mormon does not contain such prophecies. Neither does the Koran. Only the Bible contains prophecy. And whenever the prophets predicted something, it always came true just as they said it would. How could those prophets have known the future? Since no human can know the future, then God must have told them about it! There are many ways for us to know that the Bible is from God. Prophecy is just one of them. In another one of my sermons, I would like to talk to you about several other things that prove to us that the Bible is the Word of God.
But before I close, I would like to ask you this one question: What does God expect us to do with the Bible? The answer to that is easy. Jesus said in John 14:15, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” God wants us to obey His Word as found in the Bible. If we do, the Bible will lead us home to heaven so that we can live with God forever. What a wonderful thought that is!