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Adrian Rogers – How you can be certain the Bible is the word of God

Why I Believe the Bible to Be the Word of God

Dr. Adrian Rogers

II Timothy 3

I want you to take your Bibles please and turn with me

to II Timothy chapter 3 and we’ll begin our reading in

verse 14. Paul is talking to young Timothy and he

says, “But continue thou in the things which thou hast

learned and has been assured of knowing of whom thou

hast learned them; and that from a child thou hast

known the holy Scriptures which are able to make thee

wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ

Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God

and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for

correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the

man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto

all good works.”

Why I believe the Bible, and I want to tell you,

friend, it is absolutely essential that you believe

the Word of God if you’re to know anything spiritually

and if you’re to have victory in your spiritual life.

The thing that keeps me going is not primarily what I

feel. Now, I thank God for feelings, but I’m a fellow

who operates in a moderately narrowed band. I don’t

get all that high and I don’t get all that low, but

the thing that keeps me going is not what I feel but

what I know. It is the truth of God’s Word, the

principles, and the promises, and the power of God’s

Word that sustain me and keep me going. If you do not

know God’s Word and, beyond knowing God’s Word, have

that firm assurance that the Bible is indeed the

inspired Word of God, you’re going to be floundering

around in your Christian life. These hath God married

and no man shall part, dust on the Bible and drought

in the heart.

Now, Paul here is talking to Timothy about the Bible

and he tells him several things about the Bible. First

of all, he says that all Scripture is given by

inspiration of God in verse 16. That literally means

that all Scripture is the breath of God. You see, as

I’m speaking to you right now what you’re hearing is

my breath. My diaphragm is forcing my breath up

through my throat and over my larynx and the voice box

and my tongue and my teeth and my lips are taking the

breath and making sounds and noises out of that breath

and what you’re hearing right now is what I am

breathing out. I’m breathing out these words. Now,

that’s the word that Bible uses to describe itself.

All Scripture is God breathed. When the Bible speaks

God speaks. That’s what inspiration means. When the

Bible speaks God speaks.

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, but not

only are the Scriptures inspired, they’re instructed.

Verse 16 says they’re profitable for doctrine. What is

doctrine? That’s to tell you what’s right. Ask a

little boy what doctrine is, he says, That’s what you

need when you’re sick. If you’re sick that is good

medicine but actually the word doctrine means

teaching. The Scriptures are there to tell you what’s

right.

Then it goes on to say for doctrine and for reproof.

Not only does the Bible tell you what’s right, it also

tells you what’s wrong. You see, God doesn’t want us

to make a mistake. He doesn’t want us to go astray. So

on one side he tells us what’s right, on the other

side he tells us what’s wrong so we can walk the

straight and narrow.

But he also says in verse 16 that it is necessary for

correction–that is, when we get wrong, how to get

back right. He shows us what’s right. He shows us

what’s wrong and if we’re wrong he tells us how to get

right.

And then he says it’s profitable for instruction in

righteousness. What’s right, what’s wrong, how to get

right, and then how to stay right. How just to be

instructed day by day. How am I supposed to live? What

am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to feel? What

shall I do with my sins? Where does power come from?

Everything that I need to know, that instruction and

righteousness is there from the Word of God.

So, the Scriptures are inspired, the Scriptures are

informative, and then the Scriptures are instrumental.

That is, they work powerfully in our lives. For

example, look in verse 15. Paul told Timothy, “From a

child you’ve known the holy Scriptures that are able

to make you wise unto salvation.” You’re saved by the

Word of God. It is the message of the Bible, the

gospel that saves us, that makes us wise unto

salvation. That’s the reason that every preacher must

always preach the Word of God because the word is the

seed. We’re born again, not of corruptible seed, but

of incorruptible by the Word of God. And so, the

Scriptures are instrumental in salvation.

The Scriptures are instrumental in sanctification.

Look in verse 17, “That the man of God may be

perfect.” Now, that word perfect means complete. It

means mature. It means full grown. Do you want to be a

little baby Christian or do you want to grow? “As

newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that

you may grow thereby.” You’re going to be a pygmy

Christian, you’re going to be baby Christian, you’re

going to be a weak emaciated Christian if you don’t

grow with the Word of God. “That the man of God may be

perfect,” mature.

Not only are they necessary for salvation and

sanctification but necessary for service.

“Thoroughly furnished,” he says in verse 17, “unto all

good works.” Everything God wants you to do he

furnished through his word. So, you’re completely,

thoroughly through and through, furnished of the

Bible. All that I need to know, all that I need to

have is revealed to me in God’s word.

How important is the Bible? But friend, the Bible may

be inspired and the Bible may be informative and the

Bible may be instrumental, but if I don’t believe it,

what good is that going to do me? It’s the devil’s job

to make people doubt the Word of God. The very first

thing the devil did in the Garden of Eden was to say,

“Yea, hath God said…” and to put a question mark on

the Word of God. Well, you need to have a rock-ribbed,

iron-clad assurance that the Bible is the Word of God.

Let me tell you why I believe the Bible to be the Word

of God. Let me give you three things about faith and

these are the foundations for our faith. Number one,

faith is rooted in evidence. Have you got that? It’s

worth writing down. Faith is rooted in evidence.

Number two, faith goes beyond evidence. Number three,

faith becomes its own best evidence. Let me develop

that and you’ll have a blessing.

First of all, I want to say that faith is rooted in

evidence. People sometimes accuse us Christians of

practicing blind faith. Now, friend, blind faith is

not faith at all. Don’t ever think that I’m asking you

just to blindly believe something. If somebody tells

me to believe something, first thing I want to know is

why should I believe it. Amen. I mean, why? The

Christians faith is not blind faith. The Christian’s

faith is not a leap in the dark, it is a step in the

light. You see, the Christian’s faith is rooted in

revelation. The Christian’s faith is rooted in facts.

The Christian’s faith is rooted in evidence. God gives

us evidence for believing what we believe. Notice I

said evidence and not proof, there’s a difference.

Sometimes somebody might come and say to you, Prove

there’s a God. Don’t let that intimidate you. If you

were to say to me, Adrian, prove there’s a God, do you

know what I’d say to you? I can’t. Does that shock

you? I can’t prove there’s a God. Oh, I know there’s a

God, not that I have any doubt about it. I have no

doubt whatever, but to prove it doesn’t lie in the

realm of proof.

For example, if anybody ever comes to you and says

prove there’s a God. You just say, Prove there is no

God. Just prove there is no God. He can’t prove

there’s no God anymore than you can prove there is a

God. How can the finite prove the infinite? How can

the finite disprove the infinite? It doesn’t lie in

that realm you see. Well, he says, you just believe

there’s a God, and I say that’s right. And you just

believe there is no God, isn’t that right? Sure. You

see, all people are believers. He believes there is no

God. I believe there is a God. I’m a positive

believer, he’s a negative believe. I by faith believe

in God. He by faith believes there is no God. He says,

I don’t think there’s a God, I don’t believe there’s a

God. At least now he’s being honest. He hasn’t proven

there’s no God.

But what’s the difference between the negative be1iver

and the positive believer? Here’s the difference: the

positive believer has the evidence. You see, God has

not just told us to believe without giving us evidence

and so God has given us some evidence and that

evidence is rooted in God’s word. Now, if you’re going

to know the God of the Word, you’ve got to know the

Word of that God. And so, God has given us his Word

and God has given us some evidences that the Bible is

indeed the inspired, infallible, inerrant Word from a

God who cannot lie.

What are some evidences? Not proofs, but evidences,

that the Bible is the Word of God? (Because I’ve said

that faith is rooted in evidence.) Well, for example,

there is the historical evidence that the Bible is the

Word of God. The Bible is a history book. It tells

stories. Now, are these stories true or are they not

true? Did the things recorded in the Bible literally

happen or did they not happen? Is this actual history

or is this the figment of someone’s imagination? Well,

dear friend, the Bible is so historically accurate.

That’s one of the great evidences of its inspiration.

There was a man who lived a few years ago, Sir William

Ramsey, one of the world’s most brilliant intellects,

and he was a noted scholar. He lived in Aberdeen

Scotland and he was a great historian and a great

scholar of the history and geography of Asia Minor and

the Middle East. And when this Middle East historian,

this wizened, world-renowned man with more degrees

than a thermometer studied the book of Acts, which is

the history of the early church, he more or less

ridiculed the book of Acts. He more or less laughed at

the book of Acts. Here’s what Sir William Ramsey said

of the book of Acts and I want to describe it or at

least I want to give it to you in his own words. He

described the book of Acts as a highly imaginative and

carefully colored account of primitive Christianity.

Highly imaginative, that is, it’s not rooted in facts,

it is rooted in imagination, that’s what he was saying

about the book of Acts. Carefully colored. That is,

Luke just shaded his facts, he didn’t tell you the

truth, he just kind of shaped things and colored

things to make it come out the way he wanted it to

come out and so he said the book of Acts was not

historically correct, you can’t trust the history of

the book of Acts.

Now, remember this man was brilliant, a professor in

Aberdeen, Scotland. But do you know what he did? He

made a mistake and it was a happy mistake and good

mistake. He decided he would go to Asia minor and

there carefully investigate and study the book of Acts

and do you know what happened? He had a

transformation, one hundred and eighty degrees he was

turned around. He wrote a book entitled, THE BELOVED

PHYSICIAN. And that book was about Dr. Luke who wrote

the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts.

And now, let me tell you what he said. After he

studied minutely the works of the great historian Dr.

Luke, who gave us the gospel of Luke and the book of

Acts, and I’m quoting now, this Dr. Ramsey said, and I

want you to listen to him: “I take the view that Luke’s

history is unsurpassed in regard to its

trustworthiness.” Did you hear that? “I now take the

view that Luke’s history is unsurpassed in regard to

its trustworthiness. You may press the words of Luke

in a degree beyond any other historian and they will

stand the keenest scrutiny and the hardest treatment.”

Amazing! Here was a man who studied the facts and when

he studied the facts he said you can trust the history

of God’s word.

You know historians–they love to study what they call

profane or secular history and then to turn around and

ridicule the Word of God. One thing they used to do a

few years back, they ridiculed the book of Daniel

because of the supposed errors in the book of Daniel.

The book of Daniel tells of the Babylonian empire and

it tells that the last king in Babylon was a king

named Beltshazzar. And do you remember Beltshazzar was

the one who saw the handwriting on the wall? Do you

remember that? So the historians said, “Well, that’s

obviously a fabrication. Obviously this is not real

history because we have the records of the ancient

Babylonians and we know that the last king of Babylon

was not a man named Beltshazzar at all, it was a man

named Nabanitus. We have the archives, we have the

records and we have all of the artifacts. Beltshazzar

was no king, there was no king named Beltshazzar.

Obviously the Bible is a fake, obviously a fraud, the

book of Daniel is not history.”

But the spade of the archeologists continued to do its

work and one day they turned up a clay tablet, a

cylinder, and guess whose name was on it? Give you

three guesses, first two don’t count. Beltshazzar. And

you know what it said about Beltshazzar and other

things that they uncovered? They found out that

Beltshazzar was indeed the last king of Babylon, but

so was Nabinitus. The truth of the matter is they were

co-regents. There were two kings at the same time.

Nabinitus was the father, Beltshazzar was the son, but

Nabinitus didn’t stay home. He loved to travel and he

was a big game hunter and was often gone and so the

kingdom was in the charge of Beltshazzar.

Now, the secular, profane historian was quite correct

when he said that Nabinitus was the last king of

Babylon, but he was quite wrong when he said

Beltshazzar wasn’t the last king of Babylon. And you

see, there are little minute confirmations of the Word

of God. So in the fifth chapter of the book of Daniel,

we understand a passage now that we might not have

understood before that because Beltshazzar said to

Daniel, “If you can read the handwriting on the wall,”

I’ll make you what? “The third ruler in the kingdom.”

You see, there were already two, Beltshazzar and

Nabinitus. Now, suppose we’d not found that clay

cylinder with Beltshazzar’s name on it. Would have

that have meant the Bible was wrong? No, it would have

just meant we didn’t have enough evidence, isn’t that

right? See, friend, be careful before you let some

historian or someone tell you that the history of the

Bible is not correct.

Our faith is rooted in evidence. There’s the

historical evidence that the Bible is the Word of God.

There’s the scientific evidence that the Bible is the

Word of God and I wish I had time to deal with all of

the scientific evidence that the Bible is the Word of

God, so let me just quickly narrow and get into one

little area there.

If you’ve not read the little book called “None Of

These Diseases,” I hope you’ll read it. It’s written

by a medical doctor, Dr. S. I. McMillan. Dr. McMillan

has recorded a wonderful story in there that I’m going

to try to share a little bit with you. He talks about

the ancient Egyptians and the medical knowledge that

the ancient Egyptians had about fifteen hundred years

before Christ was born in the time when Moses was a

lad and was growing up. The Egyptians had the dominant

position in world medicine at that time.

The Egyptians were no fools. When you see the things

that the Egyptians were able to do and accomplish

you’re just overwhelmed at the intelligence of the

ancient Egyptians, but they had their medical

knowledge put in a book and we have that book. The

Papyrus Ebers, Dr. McMillan tells about it. In the

Papyrus Ebers you have there the medical knowledge of

the ancient Egyptians and it’s almost ludicrous,

friends, it’s really kind of funny when you read some

of the medicine that they recommended. Now, you might

be interested in some of these prescriptions.

For example, if your hair is turning gray, pay

attention, to prevent the hair from turning gray,

anoint it with the blood of a black cat which has been

boiled in oil or with the fat of a rattlesnake. Now,

you be careful gathering that rattlesnake fat,

alright? For people who are losing hair, when it falls

out, apply a mixture of six fats, namely those of the

snake and the ibex. I haven’t seen an ibex in a long

time but you get some snake fat and ibex fat and then

to strengthen it you anoint it with the tooth of a

donkey crushed in honey. That’s to keep your hair from

falling out. If you had a splinter or a puncture, they

recommended lizard’s blood, worm’s blood and donkey’s

dung. Can you imagine the spores, the tetanus spores

and the microbes and the filth in donkey dung? As a

matter of fact, they often used excreta for medicine–

of human beings and donkeys and antelopes and dogs and

cats and even flies–that was a part of their

medicine. Another medicine they recommended was

moisture from pig’s ears, good medicine, haha. Well,

we laugh at that.

Now, the interesting thing is do you know where Moses

got his education? Moses was educated in the

University of Egypt. You see, Moses was the adopted

son of Pharaoh and Pharaoh gave to Moses the best

education that money could buy and the Bible says that

Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.

He had the equivalency of a Ph.D. from the University

of Egypt and if he was learned in all the wisdom of

Egyptians, surely he studied this kind of knowledge.

Aren’t you glad that he didn’t write any of this in

the Bible? I mean, you would have expected what he

learned in school to bleed over in what he wrote in

the Bible, wouldn’t you? Of course you would. Moses

wrote the first five books of the Bible. Genesis,

Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. I’m so

glad we don’t read anything about using moisture from

pig’s ears for medicine.

As a matter of fact, when you read the Bible and you

read about the medicine of the Bible and you read the

sanitary code of the Bible and you read the dietary

code of the Bible you’re going to find out that modern

medicine is just now catching up. You want to be

healthy? You practice the dietary code of the Bible.

Not because you’re under legalism, just because you

want to have a good strong body. As a matter of fact,

do you know what they’re telling us now? Science is

just making a discovery. They used to talk down the

health food faddists and all of that and now the

scientists are begrudgingly coming along and the

medical doctors are begrudgingly coming along, and

saying, Hey, you need to cut all that fat out of your

diet, it might cause cancer, cut all that fat all of

your diet, it might cause high cholesterol and it

might cause heart attacks. Friend, just go back and

see what Moses had to say about cutting all that fat

out of your diet. You just go read it right there in

the Word of God. Find out what the Bible has to say.

Did you know in the fourteenth century Europe they had

a plague called the black plague? It was terrible, it

was horrible. Now, I know you’ve seen on television

the horrible things that are happening in Ethiopia and

that breaks your heart, it’s so hard to even watch.

But I want to tell you something worse than that

happened in Europe in the fourteenth century–the

black plague, where one out of every four people died.

Can you imagine that? One out of every four. One two,

three, dead. One two, three, dead. One two three,

dead. One two, three, dead. One, two three, dead. They

died and the physicians and the doctors were not able

to stop it and they didn’t know what to do. They

didn’t understand germs. They’d never seen a germ.

They didn’t know what a microbe was. They didn’t know

anything about a communicable disease. Well, you say,

everybody ought to know that. Why do you know it.

Somebody taught you, you didn’t figure it out. We

stand on the shoulders of other people. They didn’t

know that, they didn’t understand that and they

thought it was bad air, this thing or that thing, they

were trying, building fires and everything else to try

to stop the plague. Imagine trying to stop the plague

by building a fire.

And do you know it was not the doctors, it was the

church and the church leaders that finally stemmed the

tide of the plague by going back to God’s Word.

Leviticus chapter 13 and verse 46. “All the days

wherein the plague shall be upon his, he shall be

defiled, he is unclean, he shall dwell alone outside

the camp shall his habitation be.” What did the Bible

say to the man who was the leper, a man who had the

plague of leprosy? They said, “Put him outside the

camp, put him in isolation. Quarantine him, quarantine

him.” And when they begin to apply the knowledge that

Moses had given, then and only then was the plague

brought under control. One historian said the laws

against leprosy in Leviticus 13 may be regarded as the

first model of a sanitary legislation.

I’ve just talked in one little area. We could talk in

many, many areas about the wonderful medical and

scientific and evidences that the Bible is the Word of

God. Let me give you another evidence that the Bible

is the Word of God and that is the indestructibility

of this book. You see, this book is not just the book

of the month, friend, it’s the book of the ages. For

isn’t it an amazing thing? Here you are, an

intelligent erudite, educated people listening to a

halfway intelligent preacher, we’re here in the

twentieth century by television with electric lights

and we’re studying this old book. Isn’t that amazing?

You tell me what other book is as up to date. Why,

listen, it’s more up to date than tomorrow’s newspaper

and a whole lot more accurate. Amen.

Wasn’t that an amazing thing when they were

questioning the President of the United States the

other day and the news reporter said to him, “Mr.

President, we’d like your views on Armageddon.”

Amazing, Armageddon–that’s a Bible fact and here

they’re talking to the President of the most powerful

nation on the face of the earth in the most

enlightened educated time and after all of these years

people are still wanting to know what your view of

this book is. This Bible is such a living, powerful

force.

William Tyndale wanted to get the Bible printed so the

people could have it. Print it and put into the hands

of the English-speaking people and they hounded him

and they ran him out of England and William Tyndale

went to Germany and there he began to set up the type

to print the Bible so he’d get the Bible into the

hands of the people. Laboriously, day after day, week

after week, month after month, year after year,

setting that type, setting that type, not the way we

set it today, not with that ease, but painstakingly,

heartbreakingly so long to get the type set so people

could have the Bible in their mother tongue. He

finally finished the job and went to bed and that very

night vandals came in and wrecked the printing press

and destroyed the type and ruined the whole thing. He

had to start again from the bottom and to build it and

to set the type again and he finally got it done. He

printed those Bibles and in order to get them into

England, he put them in barrels of flour and shipped

them into England and the Word of God came to England.

They hated William Tyndale, some of the clerics and

the leaders, they hated him so much that they

strangled him to death. And then, not happy that they

strangled him, that wasn’t enough, they burned him

because he wanted a Bible for the people. And as they

were strangling Tyndale, he prayed, Oh God, Oh God,

open the eyes of the king of England, God, open his

eyes. They killed him in 1536. In 1611, we received

the King James Version of the Word of God. Amen.

William Tyndale, a man who loved God’s Word, a man who

died for God’s Word because the Word of God lives and

abides forever. “The grass withers, the flower thereof

falls away, but the Word of the Lord endures forever.”

Hallelujah!

Friend, men have laughed at the Bible, men have

scorned the Bible, men have made laws against the

Bible, men have ridiculed the Bible. There was a time

in Scottish history when to own a Bible was a crime

worthy of death, but the Word of God lives on and it

is bright and vibrant and relevant today. That’s an

evidence that it is the Word of God.

Let me give you another evidence. I’m just telling you

that faith is rooted in evidence. What about fulfilled

prophesy? If we were to start today and talk about

fulfilled prophesy, just the prophesy of the nations,

what is happening in the nations of this world, what

is happening on the world map, the last days, what we

call the signs of the times, why, we could take a

Bible conference for several months and just talk on

that one thing. But let me just narrow the prophesies

and let’s just talk about the prophesies concerning

the Lord Jesus Christ. Did you know that there are

more than three hundred exact, minute prophesies

concerning the life, death, burial, resurrection,

ascension, enthronement and second coming of Jesus

Christ in the Old Testament? I’m not talking about the

New Testament. I’m not talking about small prophesies

or vague prophesies. I’m talking about hard, fast,

substantial, clear prophesies concerning the Lord

Jesus Christ. That these prophesies could have been

fulfilled by chance is astronomically, listen to me

now, astronomically impossible. Billions to one would

be the chance that they would have been fulfilled by

chance.

Do you know what the enemies of the Lord Jesus say

about this? Here’s the way they answer that. They say,

Well, he just arranged to have the prophesies

fulfilled. He just rigged it so the prophesies would

be fulfilled. Well, brother Rogers, do you think he

just arranged it for the prophesies to be fulfilled?

Yes, I do, before it ever happened, not afterward, but

before. Before he ever came to this earth. Now,

listen, I was born in West Palm Beach, Florida, but I

didn’t arrange it. Jesus arranged to be born in

Bethlehem. Amen. Because the Bible says in Micah

chapter 5 that our Lord would be born in Bethlehem and

so he arranged it. But I want to tell you, he

supernaturally arranged it.

I’ll tell you something else, he arranged for Isaiah

seven hundred years before he was born to give a

biography of his life in Isaiah chapter 53. You go

home and get that Old Testament chapter of the Bible

and read Isaiah chapter 53. You’re going to find the

amazing story, the entire biography of the Lord Jesus

Christ before he was born, not after he was born,

before he was born.

Go home today and read the twenty-second Psalm, an

amazing Psalm, the twenty second Psalm is a Messianic

Psalm. It is written about the crucifixion of the Lord

Jesus Christ and the twenty-second Psalm is written as

a graphic description of the crucifixion of the Lord

Jesus Christ. It was written centuries before Jesus

was born. And let me tell you something else. In Psalm

22 the words that Jesus would say from the cross are

prophesied. The words that his enemies would say when

they ridiculed him were prophesied. The very fact that

they would gamble for his garments was prophesied.

But here’s one of the most amazing prophesies of all.

In Psalm 22 it says they “pierced my hands and my

feet.” That’s what happens when you crucify; there are

nails through your hands and nails that go through

your feet. But this was written hundreds and hundreds

of years before the Roman Empire. Crucifixion was the

Roman way of capital punishment. The Jews at that time

knew nothing of death by crucifixion. Do you know how

the Jews executed people? Do you know what the method

of Jewish capital punishment was? It wasn’t the

electric chair, it wasn’t the gas chamber, it wasn’t

crucifixion, it was stoning. They stoned people to

death. If you’ve ever been there, you know they’ve got

enough stones. They stone people to death. But

crucifixion was a Roman form of execution and the

Romans were very clever. There’s no death as horrible,

as painful, as ignominious as crucifixion and you want

to keep people in line, you show them a cross. But I

want to remind you that was a Roman form of execution

and hundreds of years before the Roman Empire comes on

the scene you read there in Psalm 22, “they pierced m

my hands and my feet.”

Now, you explain that. Do you think Jesus arranged all

of that? Do you think Jesus arranged the Roman Empire?

Do you think Jesus arranged the cross? I do, but he

arranged it before the fact, he arranged it while he

was still in glory. Yes, he arranged it all, he

arranged that he would be sold for thirty pieces of

silver as Zechariah the prophet said. He arranged that

he would be betrayed by Judas as the Bible says. He

arranged that he would be buried in rich man’s tomb.

He arranged that he would be raised from the dead the

third day and seen by five hundred people who were so

convinced that they sat out to convince others that he

was raised from the dead.

And I want to tell you something, friend, these people

with no hope of material gain became followers of the

Lord Jesus Christ, so convinced were they that Jesus

Christ came out of that grave. Many of them paid with

their life’s blood for their conviction that Jesus

Christ was alive. Now, you’re reasonable people. A man

may live for a lie but he will not knowingly die for

one. These people died, sealed their testimony with

their blood, so convinced were they that that grave

was empty and that Jesus Christ came out of that

grave. Over three hundred exact, precise prophesies in

the Old Testament are fulfilled in the New Testament.

Matthew chapter 26 verse 56, “But all this was done

that the Scriptures of the prophets might be

fulfilled.”

Time has gone from me so let me just make the other

two points very very quickly. Listen to me. Faith is

rooted in evidence. Faith goes beyond evidence, it has

to or it wouldn’t be faith. Now, God is not going to

prove himself to you, but what God will do for you is

this–God will reveal himself to you. God will give

you facts. God will give you evidence and then God

will give you faith to believe those facts. It must be

by faith because faith is a moral response to the

character of God and the Bible says in John chapter 17

verse 7, “If any man wills to do the will of God he

shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God.” Now,

what does that mean? That means if you want to know

whether these facts are true, if you want to know this

evidence, then you can know it. God on the one hand

gives you the facts and then God on the other hand

gives you the faith to believe those facts. It is not

blind faith, it is rooted in evidence, but nonetheless

it is faith. God does not prove it to you, God shows

it to you and then from the inside God gives you his

force.

You see, there is that objective revelation of God,

but then there is that subjective inclination to

believe the revelation. That’s the reason Jesus said,

“My sheep hear my voice.” I don’t know about you, but

there’s something in me that when I read this Bible it

tells me it’s the Word of God. Not just because of

these facts that I’ve been giving you, but there is

just the voice of God. God speaks in his book. Do you

know what I’m talking about? Jesus said, “He that is

of the truth heareth my word and so the words I speak

unto you, they’re spirit and they’re life.” This Bible

is not like other books. You read other books but this

book reads you. And so, faith is rooted in evidence,

but faith goes beyond evidence.

Then I want to say the last thing and I’m hurrying.

Faith then becomes its own best evidence. I believe

because I believe. Let me give you a wonderful

Scripture. Psalm 34 verse 8. “0 taste and see that the

Lord is good.” I want to find out about you people,

find out how educated you are. How many of you have

ever tasted a mango, let me see your hand? Oh, I pity

the rest of you poor, denied people. You never had any

mango. You don’t know what mango is. Listen, folks, if

you can’t go to heaven, at least you ought to have a

mango. I mean, that’s nectar, that’s indescribably

luscious fruit from Florida. I was weaned on mangos,

wonderful. Now suppose you’ve never had a mango and

somebody comes with a mango and says, That’s a mango.

It looks good and it’s beautiful and it smells good.

You ought to have some. Thus far it’s just evidence.

He says it’s a mango, he says it’s good, it smells

good, it looks good, all of the rest of it, other

people seem to be enjoying it, other people testify–

that is all evidence.

But there’s something in you that impels you, you just

feel drawn toward it, you go beyond that evidence and

then you do something, you take a bite and now, folks,

you’ve got the evidence on the inside. Amen. That’s

what the Scripture means when it says, “Taste and see

that the Lord is good,” taste and see that the Lord is

good. Now, you see, that the reason that a Christian

with an experience is never at the mercy of an infidel

with an argument, because he’s got the evidence within

him. And one of the ways that I know that the Bible is

God’s Word is because the bright, living reality, the

truth of the God of that Bible lives within my heart.

Faith is rooted in evidence, faith goes beyond

evidence, faith becomes its own best evidence.

The Bible and Archaeology – Is the Bible from God? (Kyle Butt)

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