How Do We Know the Bible Is True?

Thank you, Courtney. It was a very energetic piece. Very beautiful. Thank you very much.

One of my friends asked me, you don't really believe the Bible is from God, do you?

I said, yeah. And then he asked, why?

What would you have said if someone posed that question to you? How would you respond?

How do you know that the Bible is true and that it's really God's Word? See, I had a problem, because at the time I didn't have a good answer. Probably my mouth was kind of open. It's like, I didn't expect you to ask me why. I can't really explain that. I knew that the Bible was a pretty important book, at least I grew up kind of thinking that. I probably knew that it sold more copies than any other book, and it was the most published printed literature of all time and all of those kinds of things. I think I probably knew it was translated into more languages than any other book. I knew I still had that Bible that my church gave me when I was 12 years old. It was kind of a keepsake kind of thing, I guess. I had my name inscribed in the front. I thought that was pretty cool.

But that was about as far as I got in the book. I kind of trusted, I don't know, my parents or the minister at that time. Well, he must know that it's true. They pretty much summed everything up, I guess. I was pretty satisfied with that, at least until my friend talked me about it. What was interesting is he thought the Bible was okay. He wasn't particularly against it, at least not outright. He kind of thought, though, that it was old fashion. There really wasn't much that applied that was kind of out of date. He really did feel that there were a lot of discrepancies. If you really read that, he said there's a lot of contradictions and that there's even errors that just don't seem to make sense.

Now, the odd thing was my friend was a Christian, too, or at least claimed to be a Christian.

And that did seem kind of funny to me. But, alright, here I am. I can't explain it. In fact, I had to admit, I guess I hadn't really checked it out. I was like most people in the world. I owned a Bible, but I never really took the time to read it. Never really looked at it that much. And since that time when I was young, the world hasn't changed too much when it comes to their perspective on the Bible. I was reading a survey the other day that surveyed people who claimed to be Christians. And those Christians they focused on were those that go to church. And this survey found that here in America, half of the people that claim to be Christian go to church every week.

Now the interesting part about that is when it comes to the Bible. Imagine this half that go to church. How many of that half do you think believe the Bible is the actual Word of God? Well, this survey found that only half of them believe that the Bible is really the Word of God. So half of half even believe the Word. So what about us? Do we just have a feeling that it's God's Word, or I grew up this way, or I just know it and I know how to answer that question. If somebody asked me, why? Why do you believe it? You see, answering those questions I think is so vitally important. Is it just that you're not going to believe it? Is it just some men's opinions, some people that wrote down some ideas over the centuries? How do you verify that? Is it just that, well, my opinion is just as good as your opinion and whatever that is, that's okay? Or can I trust it? Can I rely on it? Is it accurate? Or maybe just parts of it are accurate. So if it's parts, which part is accurate?

Which part is inaccurate? And why is the Bible different, anyway? Why is it any different than the Qur'an or other religious writings? You see, I think it's important to answer those questions because this book lies at the very foundation of our faith. And trusting the validity and the authority of the Bible as God's Word is our foundation. So, can I then answer the question, is the Bible true? Or is it something that's questionable? Let's think about that for a moment. I know I needed to answer that question. Suddenly, it became one of those issues in my life. I really wanted to figure out how to answer that. I thought it was true, but really didn't know where to start. So I began looking a little bit.

One of the first things that I noticed was that God said it was so. Okay, maybe not the best place to start, but that was the first place that I went. As I started looking at the Bible a little bit, it became obvious that God says it's His Word. I found a passage in 2 Timothy 3, verse 16. And in 2 Timothy, the apostle Paul wrote, all scripture is given by inspiration of God. So he claims that God inspired all of the Bible. At least at that time it was the Old Testament, but he says it was all inspired by God. And he says it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

And he also says that we, as people of God, may be complete. So when I read that, I read that, I began to realize it says it's so. God says it's inspired. In fact, that word talks about God breathing this scripture. And it starts to bring these images to mind that just like He breathed that breath of life into Adam, and He became a living person, that God breathes spiritual life into His Word so that we could have a spiritual foundation and perspective in our life. And so God says it's so. He says His Word is truth. Christ said that, didn't He? John 17, 17, He says, sanctify them by Your truth. Your Word is truth. So if the Bible is God's Word, well, He says it is, then what it says, the statements it makes, must be true. Well, that was a pretty good place for me to start. But then I kind of got challenged about that, even though I said, well, wait a second. Did you know how many times the Bible says God says this, or the Lord spoke, or thus saith the Lord, or the Word of the Lord came, or God has spoken? I mean, it's not just 100 times, or 500 times, or even a thousand times. Do you know how many times phrases like that come up in the Bible? Four thousand times. I mean, depending on what translation you look at, but it's over and over and over, and constantly mentioned that God says this is His Word. So I was convinced.

All right. Settled. Of course, then I got challenged. It's like, wait a second, you can't. You can't use the Bible to prove the Bible. That isn't fair. It's like, well, I thought it was pretty good reasoning, isn't it? I said, no, that's circular reasoning.

You're saying the Bible proves itself because it says so. Okay. Well, not that it's not true, but maybe I've got to look a little bit farther. Maybe there's more ways to show how the Bible is God's Word. Well, you know what I came to next? Something that maybe seems kind of odd, but if you know me, maybe it's not so odd. I began to notice how the Bible is blunt. I mean, the Bible is right to the point sometimes. It doesn't hold back any punches. It tells it like it is. Things are wide open, straightforward, direct, showing people's warts and spots, and it is just painfully honest sometimes when it comes to us as human beings. You go all the way back. Go back to one of the heroes of the Bible. We think of this great figure of faith, Abraham. And what does the Bible say about Abraham? It says he was a liar. It says he didn't do what was... It says he couldn't trust God long enough to wait for a promised son. So, hey, I've got to do this myself. I've got to take it into my own hands. And so it very honestly shows Abraham's shortcomings. And it doesn't stop there. There's Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, grandson Jacob. What does it show Jacob to be? Well, in the end, he's Israel. Wow! What a great, faithful man. But before that, he was the heel catcher. He was the deceiver. And the Bible is so candid and so direct when it comes to us as human beings. Even the great hero Moses, the lawgiver, what has he shown to be? Well, God shows very clearly. He was insecure. He was reluctant in taking on those responsibilities. He couldn't really even speak very well. So he had to have his brother come along with him to do the talking. And his first attempts at trying to come to the aid of his people who were under Pharaoh, what did he do? Murder somebody and run off.

Yeah, a man with problems. In fact, the Bible is so straightforward, so right to the point.

As time moves on and God is working with what we often call this model nation, this people of Israel who are supposed to be the ultimate example of God's way of life. You get over to the book of Ezekiel 16 and it describes this model nation as a people who are worse than Sodom and Gomorrah. God doesn't hold anybody. He says that they're more abominable.

Their sins that they committed were more abominable than Sodom and Gomorrah. Sodom and Gomorrah is more righteous than you. Can you imagine that being said about you?

And so the Bible is straight out when it comes to human nature, when it comes to the difficulties that we all face. Scripture is not written for the weak-hearted. Scripture is not written just so that we can have nice warm feelings and fuzzy thoughts and have everything just perfect. Be totally comfortable with our circumstances.

We are a people with problems. We all have problems. We all have challenges. And what it began to show me is that the Bible is written for people that are flawed. We are flawed human beings. We have a great spiritual need for an answer to all those flaws. And that began to show me that God challenges us straight out to look at ourselves. It challenges us to be direct about our own lives. It challenges us to be honest and candid and frank when it comes to our shortcomings, because He has a solution to our problems. He has a solution to that spiritual need, that spiritual emptiness that we all have to have filled. And so that began to guide me in that direction, that God's blunt and straightforward so that I can be too. And I can begin to find the solution to that what's missing in my life. So that kind of took me on the next kind of step to begin to verify. Now, it didn't prove anything.

To me personally, it kind of spoke to me, but it still didn't really get down to that thing that I could say, aha, this is it, this proves it. Yeah, it was a little helpful, but my friend wasn't satisfied with that. It needed more than that. As time went on, I began to learn more and more about the Bible. And I came to a third concept to know that the Bible is the Word of God. And it has to do with three boys and goats. So if you can remember the veracity of the Bible, the truth of the Bible can be proven by three boys and goats.

You might not be in too bad a shame. Now, why is that? Well, this young Juma started getting a little nervous. He was watching the goats, tending them, and they started getting way too high up on the cliffs. And it started making them a little worried. So he figured, I'd better go after them before they get in total trouble. So he starts climbing up these rock cliffs to help get them back. And as he climbed up, he came across two small little openings, two small little what looked like caves, that just seemed to dot that whole region of the world, those barren cliffs that overlooked the shore of the Dead Sea. And as he was trying to see in, the sun was already starting to set, he just thought, I'll just kind of check things out a little bit. But he was a little worried about going in at dusk. So you know what he did? He picked up a stone and he threw it into one of the openings.

Something funny happened. He expected just to hear this rock kind of roll around in there.

Instead, you know what he heard? He heard a cracking sound and it took him back. He wasn't expecting to hear that. Certainly the sound of something breaking. And suddenly his eyes just lit up. He was super excited about the possibility of treasure. It had to be gold or silver or some kind of special treasure that somebody hid in those remote caves. So he calls his cousins. He calls Muhammad and he calls Khalil. And he calls to them and they climbed up. They knew there had to be treasure in those caves. It was too late in the day. They couldn't do anything about it. They were a little too worried about going back into this dark area. And so they figured, tomorrow. Tomorrow we're going to come back. We'll get the goats together. We'll head back. And then we'll come back tomorrow and we'll collect the gold. We'll have all the treasure we could ever want. Well, you know what happened the next day? Muhammad did not wait for the other two. He woke up earlier maybe on purpose. Woke up earlier and he ran to those caves. And he went right inside.

And he started finding pieces of all kinds of stuff. They were broken pottery and it just seemed to be pieces of fragments of things that were all over the floor. And then he noticed there were three jars. Three jars. These beautiful pottery jars that still had their lids on them. So you know what he did? Immediately he just ran to those jars and he pulled off those lids because he knew the gold was in there. There wasn't. There were just these things that were wrapped up kind of in some type of cloth that looked like they were kind of green and kind of deteriorated and they smelled funny. And so he just went out really dejected. Very disappointed. He went back and he said, well, guys, no treasure there. Nothing there that we're going to make any money off of. Now, the interesting thing is they decided, okay, let's take a couple of these scrolls with us as we go. Well, you know what those scrolls ended up to be? They ended up to be three of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

So they didn't find much for gold or silver, no treasure there, but they did happen upon probably the greatest manuscript treasure that's ever been found. Because in that treasure, all the way back in 1947, when they first found those caves looking after their straying goats, this fantastic archaeological discovery, maybe the greatest of all time, certainly the greatest of the 20th century, put the world on a whole other path. You wouldn't think three Bedouin boys would have an impact in the Bible, but that's exactly what happened.

Many of these manuscripts, yeah, there were quite a few different writings, but there were biblical manuscripts. And not just one, but you know in that stash, and eventually as they searched other caves in the area, they found manuscripts from every single book of the Bible. Well, actually just one was missing. The book of Esther, they didn't find there. But every other book, they found fragments within those caves of Qumran. And not just any old fragments, but they started translating these fragments, especially the scroll of Isaiah. They almost have the entire book of Isaiah. And you know what? It matches.

What happened is finding these scrolls put these scrolls a thousand years before any of the other manuscripts that we've had. And you know what? Those manuscripts that were a thousand years older matched the ones that were that much more recent. And so what we begin to find is that the old copies matched the newer copies, and the fragments matched with what we have in our Bible today. And so it's an awesome truth, an amazing truth, that all of these manuscripts are almost identical. And of course, what my friend would have said is that over time, the Bible has been tampered with. People have put things in there that they want to. And over time, it's just been lost. But these three boys and goats came to prove that it's true. The Bible is accurate. In fact, if you begin to look into how the scribes would copy those manuscripts, it's a phenomenal story. You can Google it and find out a little about it. You can even see some YouTube videos that try to mimic how the scribes would have been so careful as they copied those documents. They were almost, I guess, superstitious, you might say, in how they had such reverence for the words that they were copying. And there were regulations about almost everything that they did. So as they would begin to copy, they could only put this word on certain types of manuscripts.

They couldn't just put it on any old, what we'd call, paper. They had to be certain, specific. Even the ink that they used had to be just the right kind. And that wasn't all. The columns that they wrote in, the size of the print, had to be precise. There was even a special ritual that they used when they came to God's name, that they had to do it just right. Even the spacing in the letters had to be right. Then when they finished they would count the lines to make sure they matched up with the document they were counting.

They could never go by memory. Never go by memory. They had to go by the copy that they were copying. So they counted those lines. And then they counted every letter. Every letter was counted. And if any discrepancy was found, you know what they did with that manuscript? They destroyed it. They destroyed it. So there were no errors that were left to be a discrepancy. And so they were so cautious about that. And even textual scholars today, Bible experts today, they agree. There is some agreement, especially if you go back in time, there was this man named Frederick Kenyon. His daughter became a famous archaeologist not all that long ago. And he said something interesting that I think kind of epitomizes the amazing discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. What he said is this, the Christian can take the whole Bible in his hand and say without fear or hesitation that he holds in it the true Word of God, handed down without essential loss from generation to generation throughout the centuries. And scholars consistently have found that. There was a scholar in the 20th century. His name was A.T. Robertson. He wrote some really amazing works. He wrote different word studies, probably one of his more famous works, word studies in the Greek. Also writes a book that we use at the Ambassador Bible Center, A Harmony of the Gospels, where he puts all the gospels together in kind of a chronological order. Very famous for doing that. Well, he, without the aid of computers so much, went through manuscripts and had the scholarship to do that. And what he says about the Bible, he says that in comparing and contrasting the various manuscripts, he says that as a Greek scholar, the New Testament is like ivory soap. It's 99.9% pure. So when you look at that, that's pretty amazing. What does that mean? Does that mean that we are reading an accurate translation of the Bible?

I think that means we can believe what we read. Now, one thing he did say that was kind of humorous. He said he had his own proof for the Bible. You know, one proof for A.T.

Robertson was. He said the greatest proof that the Bible is the inspired word is that it's withstood so much bad preaching. I don't know. Maybe that's the case. But it is an amazing story. Do you ever want to really dig into things? Research the story of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In fact, they're still translating those documents. About, I think, a year ago, they had part of the Dead Sea Scrolls here in Cincinnati.

And maybe you got a chance to go down and see them. And they tell the story of finding them and translating them and how they're still working with them. It is just a phenomenal story that shows God is certainly involved in all of these things. Now, of course, some can say, well, I don't know if it's that big of a proof. You know, it could just be a big hoax.

Some people try to put it off as not that big a deal. But proving the Bible doesn't stop there. We could go into so many various aspects of the Bible. We could just talk about the structure of the Bible. The Bible is unique. It is a unique book. We call it a book, but it's not really a book. It's lots of different books. It's a collection of books and letters that have been saved over the centuries with many authors, over 40, some estimate.

Over 40 authors involved, 1500 years between the writings. And did John know what Moses was going to write? I don't think so. Somehow they all match. Somehow the story is the same. Somehow it all fits together. It tells one consistent story throughout. I mean, it tells me only God could do that.

And when you read not only about the Bible, but read the history of the Bible. You read that history and you find checking sources, it's accurate. Archaeologists have dug up different scrolls. They've dug up different pieces of pottery that even up until the 90s, a lot of scholars didn't believe King David existed. It's just an old Bible story that really isn't true.

But then archaeology uncovered what they called the Beeth David that talked about David and proved that he did exist. And so when you look at history, you look at even the geography of the Bible. Archaeology is amazing because there's been various stories of archaeologists reading the Bible, then going to that area and uncovering a tell, a mound that, wow, this has evidence that there was a city there just like the Bible says. And so you can get into all of those details that suddenly make the speculations real.

And it doesn't stop there. If you begin to read the Bible and look at, let's say, the prophecies of the Bible, prophecy that's been fulfilled is certainly an indication of the truth of the Bible. And it's accurate whether you read in Daniel about the sequence of nations that would arise. It maps it out so clearly there. When you look at fulfilled prophecy when it comes to Jesus Christ, the Messiah, there are hundreds upon hundreds of prophecies that were fulfilled when Christ came.

And of course, many, many more about His second coming as well. And so you put those things together and that beats any psychic today. You look at the psychics. I ran across a funny study that somebody did on psychics today talking about Bible prophecy and prophets versus the psychics today. Well, somebody did a study of the top 25 psychics. You know what they found? They found that 92% of their predictions were absolutely wrong.

I thought, well, not 8%. That's pretty good then. Still left over. They were right. Well, then I read about the other 8%. They said, well, the other 8% could be explained by chance or the fact that they already had general knowledge of the circumstances. So then I started to add up, and I know I'm bad at math, but 92 and 8 added up to 100%. And I thought, well, that's not very reliable. So I think the prophetic word, God's word, is another step in that direction to show that this is the word of God.

Now, even to the skeptic, they might say, well, it doesn't prove anything because I think some of those passages were actually written after the event. After this circumstance happened, then they wrote, well, it might happen in the future, which is ridiculous.

But that's how many reason around some of those things that point to the truth of the Bible. Yet, how can we know for sure? Is there any way, despite these things that we've talked about, which I think they all point to the consistent premise that the Bible is true?

And yet many deny that. Many would say, no, it doesn't point to that. But is there some kind of counter-argument that we could look to, to prove, and maybe prove it without a shadow of a doubt, that the Bible is God's word? Can we be certain? Is there a different kind of an argument that really would be irrefutable? I think there is. I think there is. In all of these things that we've already talked about, there's already an unstated premise. What's the premise of all of those various things, whether the Dead Sea Scrolls are real, whether or not you can trust prophecy, whether or not God says it so? How do we know that? What's the premise behind those things? I think it's the fact that all of them have some kind of a standard that we can measure truth against. You know, what's true and what's not. So we all know there's a standard for truth. You know, is my child telling me the truth when he's got chocolate all over his face and says, I didn't take the candy bar?

Is there a standard we judge those things by? I think there is. And so that standard is how we judge something to be true or not. And so think about that standard for just a moment. These standards themselves become something very important. I believe the standard becomes a proof that the Bible is true. In other words, only the Bible can make sense of the standards that everybody evaluates whether something is right or not.

Okay, now what do I mean? I can get a little bit hazy here, so I'll try to be as clear as I can. It is a challenge in our world today to try to think on a little bit deeper level.

We live in such a Twitter world. We live in such a soundbite era, a Facebook kind of world that we live in that we just like to get on the surface and we don't get that deep all that often. But we need to be critical thinkers. We need to think on a deeper level.

And I think when we begin to consider this idea about what is the standard and what makes that standard, it starts to point to something I think that's very significant. One of the things is, judging truth, we all know that when something claims to be true, if it is true, nothing can contradict it. It has to be true. So if I say, the curtain is blue, well that's true. Or some shade of blue, I don't know, whatever you want to call it.

Some shade of blue. I can't say the curtain is not blue and have that be true. So those two statements contradict. So the curtain is blue or it's not blue. It's one or the other. And that's what they call the law of non-contradiction. It violates logic to say the curtain's blue. The curtain is not blue. They conflict. They're not right. Those two things cannot go together. So one of them is true because there's this law that if it's true, it can't contradict. Now, the same is saying, the carpet is brown. That's what it is. The carpet is not green. Those things are true statements. They don't conflict.

So this law of non-contradiction becomes a standard by which we can evaluate the truth.

We can evaluate the truth because what happens is we can apply this in every case because this law is true wherever we are, everywhere we are, and it applies at all times. There's no exception to it. There's no exception to the law of non-contradictions. Things don't contradict. Okay, now why is that? Let's go a little bit deeper. How do we know those types of things? How do we know that? Well, if we have a biblical worldview, if we have a view of the world, not just the world but all life, we can begin to make sense out of these laws of logic. Alright, what does the Bible tell us about the standard for all knowledge?

Well there's a passage over in Colossians 2. In Colossians 2, it tells us a standard for logic. And I suppose we could throw in the law of non-contradiction here as well.

It gives us that standard. Let's notice what it tells us there. In Colossians 2, verse 2, we're kind of jumping into the middle of a thought here, but it talks about the knowledge of the mystery of God at the end of verse 2, both of the Father and of Christ.

So subject is the Father and Christ, and what does it say about them? Verse 3, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. So the Bible tells us God the Father and Jesus Christ have all the wisdom. They have all the understanding. They have all the knowledge that's found in Christ. It's found in God the Father. It's telling us they uphold the universe. And it tells us then they're not bound by time. Time does not constrict God.

God lives beyond time. God is not bound by time. He is beyond time. You could say it in that way. He's beyond time in that sense. Now, He's telling us He knows these things.

He's the Creator of these things. And it tells us that these laws of logic should apply in every case. There can never be an exception. And why is that? Because God's mind is over it all. God's mind is over it all. And God is truth. He is sovereign over truth. And so it's possible for us to understand that. Why? Why can we begin to understand this law of non-contradiction, the laws of logic? That's because we're in God's image. We're made in God's image so we can understand. We're able to think in a way that's consistent with His nature. We can have some of the understanding that God gives us. And so this is such an important aspect when we begin to consider what God is all about and how we can begin to prove what God has to say. And so He tells us when it comes to our worldview, the laws of logic make sense. It makes sense. God's not the author of confusion. We know the Bible says that.

All right, now what if we don't accept that the Bible is true? If we don't accept the Bible is true, what is our foundation for logic? What is our foundation for these laws?

How could I know, apart from God, that these laws work? That it actually works everywhere?

That it works anywhere? Because I'm not the smartest guy in the world. No human being has that kind of knowledge, that they know everything. So how do I know that this works in the farthest reaches of the universe? We can ask that question. Well, we assume the laws of logic will work. Even little children know this, don't they? Little children know this. Did you ever have fun with kids? I remember these little puzzles. They get all the little shapes as children are learning their shapes. Well, here's a square, and here's a triangle, and here's a rectangle, and here's a circle. And so you tell a little one who's been playing with that for a while, hey, put this circle in that square hole. Does that work? No, it doesn't fit. It doesn't fit. And even a child begins to understand that it will never fit. It will never work. You can't put that round piece in a square hole.

And so they understand the law of contradiction, even though they couldn't tell you it. They get an idea of what that's all about. And you know what? Every time you try to fool them with that, they know that's not going to work. Once they've come to understand it, they know that's not going to work. So they know that whether I'm at home, or whether I'm at Grandma's house, or whether I'm at church, there's no way that round piece is going to fit in that square hole, because that's the law of non-contradiction. It's going to work that way every time. Now, if you don't accept the Bible, though, you have a problem. You have a problem. And here's why. Maybe at first it doesn't seem like the Bible has anything to do with this, but it does. Apart from the truth revealed in the Bible, we would have no way to assume that the laws of logic apply everywhere and at all times. We wouldn't know that. Yeah, we assume it. You see, science assumes that that's the problem. But that's an issue when you really think about it. The only way that we can make sense of the absolute, exceptionless, unchanging ways of nature is by the laws of logic. And so what does that tell us about ourselves as God-hearing people? I think it begins to point that only God's people have a good reason to presume the reliability of logic. Why is that? Because an unbeliever doesn't have a reason from his own perspective to believe it. God says there is non-contradiction. Where does that come from? That comes from the mind of God. Science can say it, but how are they saying it? They're presuming it.

That's not even scientific to presume something. It's backed up with facts for the true Christian.

And so then what it comes down to, an unbeliever can believe those things, but they only can believe it from blind faith. It takes more faith to believe from their perspective than it does for us, because our faith in the Bible makes knowledge possible. That's not a contradiction.

That is not a contradiction. And we begin to see, if we can begin to grasp that whole issue of logic and non-contradiction, that it proves the truth of the Bible. Maybe said a little bit differently. Science loves to make predictions, don't they? So don't give up on me yet. We'll approach it from another angle here. Science loves to make predictions about things. But how do they make predictions? Well, they base it on this reliability. So if I take this chemical A and I mix it with this chemical B, I might explode the lab.

But anyway, I'll come up with whatever this thing is that's chemical C. And every time I mix A and B, every time it's going to come up with C. If the circumstances are the same, the conditions are like, I'm going to get the same result over and over and over and over again. And that's because science is based on that uniformity, based on that consistency that's found in nature. Why? Why should there be conformity in nature? Why should it be that way? And how do we know about it? How do we find that out? Well, we just presume it's going to be true, because it works this way before. It's going to work this way again.

Maybe one way we can think of this is, on Thursday, did you have any doubt that by the time we got to the Sabbath that you'd go flying off of the earth because there was no gravity?

No, you probably presume that there'd probably be gravity today, and you'd be able to drive on the road to get here for services. We presume, because it was like that in the past, it's going to continue that way as well. And so we have that uniformity. We know, or we feel, we assume that it's going to be true. It's the same thing with those that study the galaxies.

The astronomers look, and they can chart the stars. They can tell you the sunsets for years to come. They can tell you where the planets are going to be at. They can track, you know, comments and all types of things. Why? Because there's a consistency in the way that nature operates. And so in these very basic ways, we know it will be like that. But science has a problem. The problem is, what's the foundation? Without this critical principle of consistency in nature, uniformity in the creation. Without that principle, there would be no foundation. There would be nothing to base that on. And so what is the foundation?

It's the Bible. The Bible is the foundation. How does God uphold the universe in a consistent way? He does it by His will. He does it by His will, and He tells us He does that. This is not something that science came up with on their own. Science has proven God's existence by the uniformity in nature. And sometimes we overlook that, and it brings us to some pretty interesting conclusions. If you look to Genesis 8, here's where it tells us. Maybe we'd miss it if we don't think of it in these terms. But Genesis 8, verse 22, here's a promise of God, where God tells us He upholds the universe in a consistent way that is a blessing, and it's a benefit for all of us. Let's notice what it says here. Look at God's promise.

He says, while the earth remains, seed, time, and harvest, cold, and heat, winter, and summer, and day and night shall not cease. God tells us the basic cycle of nature will continue.

It will continue in the future, just as it's been in the past. Well, who's in a position to tell us that? Science? I don't think so. God. God is the only one in that position to tell us on His own authority that this will be true, because God's beyond time. God is not bound by time. Have you experienced the future? Has science experienced the future?

I don't think so. The only way we can know the future will be like the past, because God told us in His Word it will be. It will be. I think not apart from the Bible. It doesn't make sense, does it? If we think about that for a moment, I think it can begin to come a little bit clearer. What makes us think that it will be like this tomorrow, that there will be gravity, that it will continue on, was because there's gravity today. So we can look back, and because of the past, we'd say, well, see, I was right. I was right.

And so science says this past success is the indicator that it will be like this in the future. But isn't there a problem in the logic of that? Think about the problem of the logic of that. They are arbitrarily assuming the very thing they're trying to prove. They're assuming the same thing, that the future will be like the past. But we're assuming the past will be like... See the fallacy involved? There's a fallacy in that type of reasoning, and they call that begging the question. Begging the question. There's a fallacy in that kind of reasoning. It's really an interesting study when you begin to study what fallacies are and how people have so many hiccups in their reasoning. And here's science at the base of science has this big hiccup of begging the question. Because any time we use the past experience as an indicator of what probably will happen, we're relying on the belief that in the future it's going to be like the past. And of course, we trust the Bible. We know there's going to be a time it is not going to be like the past. It's going to be totally different. And who's in control of that? Well, God's in control, and He says He's in control.

So we can't merely presume that past experience, that's the reason and our belief that the future will be consistent. It will be uniform, unless we knew by some other means that nature will be uniform. And of course, the means that we know it will be uniform? God says so. Only God provides that escape from this vicious, illogical circle of reasoning. And I think it points to a powerful reason to why the Bible is true. It could seem complicated, but we'll break it down a little bit, and I think we can come to that conclusion. In fact, it leads us to maybe even a more challenging question.

We look at all of these things, and as I prove the Bible to myself, which we all have to do, it led me to a point to ask myself, now what do I do? Now what do I do? In fact, I think I even thought to myself, oh no. Because it brings us to a dilemma. If we believe in God and we believe that the Bible is His Word, then that means we've got to do what it says. We've got to follow through with what it says. In fact, Christ Himself said, blessed are those who hear the Word. That's about where I was at once I realized, oh yeah, God is real. This is His Word. But then Christ didn't stop there in Luke 11.28. He said, blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it. I have to do something about it. As I read more, came to the conclusion, I have to live this way. I have to do these things. I began to see how God says, yeah, it's our duty, and there are different things that He commands that I need to follow. I have to actually show that I love God and care about God by obeying. And He begins to show that so clearly. If you love me, you keep my commandments. In fact, you show that you love me. That love of God is obeying and keeping the commandments. And then I was certainly bothered by James 1.22. In James 1.22, it became so clear that as God speaks from the truth of His Word, He says, Be doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. You see, I can look the other way. I can try to forget about it. But I'm only fooling myself. I can try to reason around it. But when it comes to the truth of God's Word, He says, Don't just be a hearer. You've got to start doing it. Verse 25, He went on, says, Whoever looks intently into the perfect law, NIV says, that gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they've heard, but doing it, they'll be blessed in what they do. And so God challenges each of us to test His Word, to try His Word. And I think when we do that, we find that it is the Word of Truth. But sometimes it can seem kind of overwhelming. It can seem like, wow, this is a big, thick book and where do I start? And I know there's all these genealogies that seem to go on forever, and I don't know if I want to read all that stuff. And how do you find anything in here that would really be all that helpful? Well, I heard a story once about being given a job.

You can put yourself in this scenario. Imagine that you're given a job. You show up at the beach for your new job. And here is that gigantic pile of sand right there on the shoreline.

And your boss tells you, this is your job. You're going to have to sift through all of this sand and get out any of the glass, get out any of the metal, get out any of the old cigarette butts that are in here. You've got to get rid of all of the junk and all of the trash that's in this gigantic pile of sand. And oh, here's your tools to do it. And he hands you a teaspoon and a little strainer. You'd be really excited about that job, wouldn't you? Sometimes that feels like maybe that's what the Bible's like. It's this gigantic thing that I'm not sure I have the tools that I can work with this. But imagine this. What if you were then told that while you were doing this job of sifting through this gigantic pile of sand that you were guaranteed every hour you would find a brilliant one-carat diamond that would be worth $10,000? You think you'd have a different perspective on your job? Yeah, I think I'd be pretty excited about that. When do I get to the next one? This is great! I think the whole pile of sand takes on a whole different meaning, doesn't it? Now why would it be any different? It's because now there's not just cigarette butts and trash and metal and garbage and all this stuff. Now there's something valuable. Now there's a treasure in that pile of sand. And the value is what's hidden inside of it. What's inside that gigantic pile? You think you'd be bored with your job? You think you'd say, I don't feel like doing this anymore? Probably not. Probably most of us are just enough greedy that we'd love to find that very next diamond that comes along. As I thought about that story, Psalm 119 verse 162 came to mind where it says, I rejoice in your word as one who finds great treasure. And that's kind of what the Bible is like. There is great treasure buried within the walls of this book. Between the pages of this book, there are tremendous blessings. In fact, when we really take it to heart, when we seek it out, when we dig out that valuable treasure, we're going to be that much better equipped when somebody asks us, you don't really believe that the Bible is from God, do you? We could say, absolutely.

There is no doubt. Certainly God says so. He gives it to us straight from the heart.

It is unique. There are amazing things about prophecy and geography and history that's found in it. It is the standard to judge everything by. And in fact, I know it to be true because of my experience. And I think we find that as we sift through the wonderful things that God has in mind for each and every one of us. He tells us all the way at the end of that sand pile, all the way in the back of the book in the book of Revelation, he tells us, bless is he who reads and he reads and bless the...let me try that again. Revelation 1.3, it says, blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and keep those things that are written in it, for the time is near. So he tells us there is a blessing to be found in the pages of this amazing, truthful book. So as we begin, we can be ready to be inspired. We should be ready to listen to God. We should be ready to gain that much of a deeper understanding. And we can be ready to obey and follow what God says because it is the most powerful and the most relevant book that you can truly believe in. It's the Bible.