How to Know the Bible is the Word of God | Part 2

Listen closely to Adrian Rogers as he explains the power of the Bible. Like the Bible, we read the Bible and the Bible reads us.

Welcome to Love Worth Finding, featuring profound truth simply stated by beloved pastor and Bible teacher Adrian Rogers. Do you know, without a doubt, that the Bible is the Word of God? Pastor Rogers said, if you want to be an exclamation point rather than a question mark, then you need to be certain that the Bible is the Word of God. In Part 1 of today's message, we learned about the Bible's scientific accuracy and how new studies and groundbreaking discoveries don't take God by surprise. Neither do they contradict His Word. If you have your Bible, find 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16 as Adrian Rogers reveals more on how to know the Bible is the Word of God. There is one little verse in the Word of God. Listen to it. I've been a Christian now for more than half a century.

What keeps me going is not how I feel. It is what I know. What I know that has come from the Word of God. The Bible is not the book of the month. It is the book of the ages.

It is outlived, out loved, out lifted, out reached, out ranked, all other books put together. There is no book. Like the Bible. We read the Bible and the Bible reads us. Now there is a war against the Word of God today and there are those who literally despise it. They hate the Bible. For whatever reasons, they would wish that the Bible were obliterated. But not only those who despise it, there are those who deny it.

They don't hate it. They just say, I don't believe it. I don't believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. There are others like the cults who don't despise it or deny it.

They distort it. They massacre the Bible with their interpretations and there are plenty of those around. One of the ways that I know the Bible is the Word of God. It has stood up under so much shoddy preaching.

It has to be the Word of God. Then there are those who don't distort it but they dissect it. They come to the Bible like it is a math book rather than a love story and they bring their minds to it and try and pick it apart piece by piece and pry out the treasures from the Word of God.

And that cannot be done. Then I suppose, however, the greatest enemy of the Bible are people who sit in our churches. They don't despise it. They don't deny it.

They don't distort it. They just disregard it. Now they give lip service to the Bible but they don't really study it. I would not ask tonight for a show of hands as to how many people in this room spend more time with the newspaper and television than they spend with the Word of God.

That would be embarrassing. We disregard the Bible to our own hurt. These hath God married and no man shall part. Dust on the Bible and drought in the heart. You will not be any bigger, any better, any stronger than you believe in the Word of God. Why is it so important to understand the Bible is the Word of God? Your salvation depends upon it. Your salvation is based on the gospel and the gospel comes out of the Word of God. Apart from gospel truth, no one is saved. If you want somebody to be saved, you've got to give them something to believe.

And what are you going to give them? The Word of God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Your growth as a Christian depends upon the Word of God.

As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the Word that you may grow thereby. Your sanctification depends upon the Word of God. Jesus said, sanctify them with thy truth. Thy word is truth.

Your assurance depends upon the Word of God. It is written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. Friend, I cannot tell you how important it is that you have a solid conviction that the Bible is the Word of God.

Distinct, different, better, higher, more glorious than any other book that was ever written. Now, I want to give you five reasons why I believe the Bible is the Word of God. And so you can say with confidence, I know the Bible is the Word of God.

I'm going to start with the first reason, which is where the Bible is so often attacked. I believe the Bible is the Word of God because of the scientific accuracy of the Bible. Now, there are those who will tell you, well, of course the Bible is not scientifically accurate because it was written thousands of years ago. Now, before you say that, make certain that you know two things. Make certain that you know science.

And make certain that you know the Word of God. You see, the Bible does not always agree with science. And for that, I am infinitely glad that the Bible does not always agree with science. If you've ever been to Paris, you most likely have visited the Louvre, that great library and art museum there in central Paris. There are three and one-half miles of books on science.

Three and a half miles, that's a lot of books. Almost every one of them obsolete because science is changing. What is called a scientific fact in one era is not in this era. As a matter of fact, in 1861, there was a French academy of science that wrote a little pamphlet, a little book.

It was an anti-God, anti-Christ, anti-Bible book. But it was a scientific book in that day. And they listed what they call 51 incontrovertible facts that prove the Bible scientifically wrong. Fifty-one scientific facts.

Let me tell you the interesting thing about that. Today, more than 100 years later, there is not a reputable scientist who believes one of those so-called 51 facts. Now, aren't you glad the Bible, therefore, did not agree with the science of that day? Had the Bible agreed with that science, then the Bible would have been wrong. You give the scientists enough time, perhaps they'll catch up with the Bible. When a scientist says a good word about the Bible, that doesn't give them more faith than the Bible, just a little more faith than the scientists. If you look at the Bible from a scientific point of view, it is miraculous what the Bible teaches about science. For example, you and I take it for granted that the earth is suspended in space.

This celestial ball floats in space. Well, men didn't always know that. You would not know it unless somebody had taught you. And had done great things in mathematics and science, who built the pyramids that were antiquities even in the time of Christ. They believed that the earth was supported on five pillars, five gigantic pillars that held up the earth.

We would expect to find perhaps some of that mythology in the Bible, but in Job chapter 26 and verse 7, we read this. God hangeth the earth upon nothing. Hangeth the earth upon nothing. That's a great scientific fact, that the earth is there suspended in space.

How did Job know that? Perhaps the oldest piece of literature, written literature known to man, that God hangeth the earth upon nothing, Job 26, verse 7. Now, in the Middle Ages, in the Middle Ages, there came the Bubonic Plague. It was called the Black Plague. It was called the Black Plague in the 14th century. It was so devastating that one out of four people died. One, two, three, you're dead. Think about it.

Devastating. They tried to do everything they could do to stop the Black Plague. They couldn't figure out what caused it, and everybody was frightened of the Black Plague. It was a mystery, but it was the Word of God that brought it to a conclusion.

Not the scientist, but the Word of God. Finally, somebody turned to the book of Leviticus, chapter 13, verse 46. All the days wherein the plague shall be in him, he shall be defiled, he is unclean, he shall dwell alone. Without the camp shall his habitation be. That is, if he has the plague, quarantine him.

Get him away. That's what they do today, people of SARS. That's what they do today when people have these communicable diseases.

You put away your quarantine. Now, this was written way before the day of microbiology, way before the days when anybody had any idea what a germ is. Germs are invisible. They didn't know what germs are. There was something that took place in the hospitals in Vienna. One out of every five expectant mothers was dying of infection. They would go in for prenatal examinations, and they would get infected. And the doctors were going from one examination room to the next examination room to the next examination room without washing their hands. One expectant mother would be infected, and the doctor would forthwith infect all of the others that he examined. There was a doctor, Dr. Semmelweis, who got to watching that.

He was the head of the hospital. He said, from now on, you are going to wash your hands before you examine. As a matter of fact, the doctors in that day would go from the morgue and do an autopsy. On a cadaver, and without washing the hands, would come in and do a pelvic examination on the expectant mother. And he said, you will wash your hands when you leave the morgue before you go in to make these examinations. Well, when he did that, after this, only one out of 84 died just by washing the hands when they came out of the morgue. They would go in a row even after they'd washed the hands after they'd come out of the morgue. Semmelweis said, now you will wash your hands between every examination. Oh, the doctor said, we can't do that.

That takes too much time. They almost drove him insane. But he stood his ground. Now, what doctor today would even begin to think about going from patient to patient without scrubbing or without changing to latex gloves? Well, friend, what does the Word of God say about all of this? Well, look, if you will, in Numbers chapter 19, verses 14 through 19, this is the law.

It says, not just one that is slain with a sword in the open fields, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave should be unclean seven days. Again, they had no idea about a germ. Don't think you know about germs because you're so smart. You can't see them. You can't taste them.

You can't feel them. But God says, don't contaminate people. Well, I wish I had more time to talk about that. I'm just telling you the first reason that I believe the Bible is the Word of God is the one that it's so often criticized for, and that is its scientific accuracy. There's not one scientific error in the Word of God if you understand true science and understand the Word of God, and you don't have to sit behind the door sucking your thumb ashamed to stand up for Christ in the Bible. The Bible is the Word of God, not only because of its scientific accuracy, but because of its historical accuracy. Now, the Bible is not primarily a book of science. A wise man has said, the Bible is not written to tell us how the heavens go. It's written to tell us how to go to heaven.

I agree with that. But the God who wrote the Bible is the God of all science. And Jesus said, if I've told you earthly things and you believe not, how should you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

We can believe the earthly things of the Bible. But not only is the Bible not a book of science, it is not a book of history per se, but it is historically correct. Another wise man said the Bible, while it may not be a book of history per se, it is his story. It is the story of God. But people have lampooned the Bible because of its history.

They've said, well, the Bible's not historically correct. A great scholar, Dr. S.R. Driver, was a man who studied the ancient languages.

A brilliant scholar. He laughed at the idea that Moses even wrote the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch. He said it was impossible for Moses, if he lived in that time, to have written the Bible because men did not know how to write during that time. In northern Egypt, came across some tablets. I studied about these in school many years ago, the Tel El Amarna tablets. These were clay tablets that a woman uncovered when she was spading her garden in northern Egypt. And what they were was messages stamped in the clay, letters, in writing, from people in Palestine to people in Egypt and people in Egypt to people in Palestine. And they were business letters and correspondence. Not only did they know how to write, they had a post office, probably about as good as ours, sending letters back and forth. Now, this man, Dr. S.R.

Driver, was a brilliant man. He was just flat out wrong. They did know how to write in the time of Moses. I told you also, how could the papyrus ebers have been written, had they not known how to write.

Let me give you another historical illustration. Many of you have read the book of Daniel. In the book of Daniel is the story of the handwriting on the wall. Remember, Belshazzar had a feast with a thousand of his lords and ladies. And he was drinking from the vessels that had been carried away from the temple of God. And in the midst of this Bacchanalian feast, a gruesome hand begins to write on the wall, Mene, Mene, Tikhel, Eufarsin. It was Daniel who came in and read the handwriting on the wall and told the king, that says that you've been weighed in the balances and found wanting.

Your kingdom is coming to an end. But the point of the whole matter is this, that Belshazzar said to Daniel, Daniel, if you can read the handwriting on the wall, I'll make you the third ruler in the kingdom. Now, the historians laughed at that story.

They said that's impossible. We know it's impossible because we have the historical records of the ancient Babylonians. And we know that the last king of Babylon, before it fell, was not a man named Belshazzar. It was a man named Nabonidus or Nabonidus, whichever way you prefer to pronounce it. Nabonidus is the way I'll pronounce it.

Nabonidus was the last king of Babylon. And we have no record of any of Belshazzar. This is obviously a pious fraud. Somebody wrote this story. It never happened. There was no handwriting on the wall.

It never happened. And so they ridiculed the Bible until one day, the spade of the archaeologist uncovered a cylinder. Guess whose name was on it? Belshazzar's name.

And guess what? They later discovered about Belshazzar. That Belshazzar was the son of Nabonidus. And that he and his father ruled together. Now, the secular historian was quite correct when he said that Nabonidus was the last king of Babylon. But he was quite wrong when he said that Belshazzar was not.

They were co-regents. And according to more history, was a big game hunter and a world traveler. And the kingdom was run not by Nabonidus, but by Belshazzar.

Now, you think with me. Doesn't it make more sense now that Nabonidus said to Daniel, if you can read the handwriting on the wall, I'll make you what? The third ruler in the kingdom. See, there are already two.

And the third ruler's name on it. Would that have made the Bible any less true? Of course not. It would have been true without that so-called archaeological evidence.

It would make no difference. What I'm trying to say is that the Bible is historically true. You can bank on the record of the word of God. But there's some great questions in the Bible. One of those questions in the Bible is how should we escape if we neglect so great salvation? I mean, if you turn from God's word, there's no escape for you. Another great question is, what will you do with Jesus, who's called the Christ?

Isn't that a great question? And you will do something with him. You will ignore him or listen to him. You will accept him or reject him. You will crown him or crucify him. But you will do something with Jesus. You say, well, I won't decide about Jesus. You just decided not to decide, which is a decision. Another great question in the Bible, what must I do to be saved?

Thank God for the answer. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. How do I know? Not because I feel it. The word of God tells me. Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible.

It tells me so. And I can tell you on the authority of the word of God, that if you will trust Jesus Christ, he will save you instantaneously. He'll be with you continually. And he'll keep you eternal. Amen. If you prayed a prayer like that from your family, we would love to welcome you to God's Forever Family.

Let us hear from you today. Now, if you'd like to order a copy of today's message, call us at 1-877-LOVE-GOD, and mention the title, How to Know the Bible is the Word of God. This message is also part of the insightful series, The Bible, The Book of the Ages. For the complete collection, all 12 powerful messages, call 1-877-LOVE-GOD, or order online at lwf.org slash radio, or write us to order at Love Worth Finding, Box 37.

38600, Memphis, Tennessee 38183. Are you certain the Bible's the word of God? Consider these reasons we've heard today and come to a faithful understanding of Scripture, knowing that once you begin studying it, you're never finished with it. We hope you'll join us next time for more timeless truth from Adrian Rogers, right here on Love Worth Finding. One of our friends on Facebook wrote on our wall recently and said this, I'm so thankful for Love Worth Finding. Adrian Rogers was and still is one of the finest men of God. You cannot listen to his preaching without feeling his genuine love for God.

I'm so thankful that his messages will live on for years to come. We are so honored to share the truth of the gospel at such a time as this, and that's why Love Worth Finding is proud to present, along with the film's producers, a new documentary titled Nothing But the Truth. When you donate to the ministry right now, we would love to send you a DVD copy of this film. Pastor Adrian Rogers is prominently featured in this documentary as a lifelong defender of truth, warning about the continuing erosion of truth in the culture. Request the DVD, Nothing But the Truth, when you call with a gift right now at 1-877-LOVEGOD or give online at lwf.org slash radio. And thank you for your generous support of Love Worth Finding.