Assorted Attacks on the Bible

Because everything that we need is in the Scripture, because we are saved by the Word of Truth, because we are sanctified by the truth, the Word of God, because all instruction for living is contained here, this then becomes the point of the enemy's constant and relentless assault. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. It's a sad state of affairs when biblical truth is mocked by Hollywood, disputed by scholars, or simply ignored by society at large. But it's even worse when God's Word is criticized and disregarded within the Church. The need to stand up for Scripture has never been greater. That's why today on Grace to You, John MacArthur is going to help equip you to defend the authority of the Word of God. He's beginning a study titled Making a Case for the Bible. Now John, the fact that we're talking about making a case for the Bible, there seems to be a couple of ideas there. One is, the Bible can be trusted, and second, the Bible is under attack.

So talk about that as we launch this study. Yeah, obviously Scripture can be trusted, must be trusted, and consequently it is under attack. I mean, the devil understands that there's only one job if you're the adversary of God, and that is to make sure people don't believe what God says. Is that new? Go back to Genesis.

What's going on in the garden? You know, Satan comes to Eve, and here is the prototypical temptation. Oh, no, you're not going to die. You know, you can't believe that.

That's not true. You can't trust God's Word. You don't want to ignore the opportunity. You have to know the difference between good and evil, and you can know the difference between good and evil if you eat that fruit.

God's trying to hold something back from you by deceiving you. And Eve fell to that temptation, and it goes on and on and on through all the soul of human history. The battle is very clear. It is the battle for the ascendancy and the supremacy of the truth of God as over against the lies and deceptions of Satan. So you have to understand that in every generation, and I think every few years in every generation, we have to rise up again and make a case for the Bible. And I'm talking about a defense of Scripture's veracity and authority and power. We're going to address this in our series, Making a Case for the Bible.

Let's get started with that right now. Thanks, John. Friend, maybe you've been asked by a friend or a co-worker why they should trust the Bible.

Make sure you're ready for those questions. John MacArthur will help you with that in his study, Making a Case for the Bible. And here's John now with today's lesson. We believe in the Word of God. We believe that it is inspired.

We believe that it is without error in the original autographs and God has protected and preserved it to this day so that it substantially remains faithful to its original revelation. We believe that when the Word speaks, we are commanded to listen. That's why the Bible is the theme of everything we do. We define life and ministry in biblical terms.

It is what we believe, it is how we behave and it is the message we proclaim. And the Bible claims to be the very Word of God and it does so in an unaffected and unambiguous way. Old Testament writers, for example, refer to what they wrote as the very words of God over 3800 times. New Testament writers quote the Old Testament as the Word of God 320 times and refer to it at least a thousand times. The New Testament writers repeatedly claim divine inspiration as did the old. Jesus Himself claims that both the Old Testament and the New Testament are inspired by God. There are a couple of definitive statements in the New Testament that sweep across our Scriptures to define for us the nature of inspiration. Listen to 2 Peter chapter 1 and verse 20, but know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. The Scripture is written down by men who are not writing from any act of human will or from any personal interpretation, but rather moved by the Holy Spirit right down what is spoken by God. A very familiar portion of Scripture that speaks to this issue is found in Paul's second letter to Timothy, chapter 3 and verse 16, all Scripture is inspired by God, literally theopneustos, God breathed. It comes forth from God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. All Scripture is inspired by God and that inspiration means that it comes from God through writers who are moved by the Spirit so that they write down what God has said and not what they wish to say. Now obviously everything we need to know about God and about us and about salvation and about the future and time and eternity is contained in the Scripture.

Everything is here. All that God wants us to know is here. That's why at the end of the last book, the book of Revelation, the Spirit of God prompted John to write not to add anything to this book, nor take anything away.

This is consummate, this is complete. It is even referred to by Jude as the once for all delivered to the saints' faith. It is a body of truth that was delivered at one time, not to be diminished and not to be embellished. Everything we need to know is here in this book in terms of our understanding of the universe and God and our relationship to Him, as well as all other relationships. Because everything that we need is in the Scripture, because we are saved by the Word of Truth, because we are sanctified by the truth, the Word of God, because we find our hope of glory in the Word, because all instruction for living is contained here. This then becomes the point of the enemy's constant and relentless assault.

And we shouldn't be surprised at this at all. Let's go back to Genesis chapter 3 and begin at the beginning...Genesis chapter 3. Now I want just to have us look briefly at the opening five verses of this very significant chapter. Chapters 1 and 2 describe the creation, Adam and Eve living in a world of bliss, a sin-free environment in perfect communion and fellowship with God. The end of chapter 2 sums it up.

The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Shame didn't exist because sin didn't exist. But everything changes in chapter 3 and I want you to see the nature of this. Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, indeed has God said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, from the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said you shall not eat from it or touch it lest you die. And the serpent said to the woman, you surely shall not die? For God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

And of course, you remember the rest of the story. She believed Satan and ate and fell and took down the whole human race and stained the entire universe in that one act. Satan is a liar and he's the father of lies, Jesus said in John 8 44.

And here he works his first great deception and he works it very successfully. Let's look back at verse 1 for a moment. The serpent, Satan in the form of a snake, comes to the woman and he said to her, indeed has God said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden. And, of course, we know that God in fact had said just that, that they were not to eat of a particular tree of the garden.

Chapter 2 verse 16, from any tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it, you shall surely die. So Satan comes to the woman and says, indeed has God said? And you might ask, why does he come to the woman rather than to Adam?

Well perhaps 1 Peter 3 7 gives us the answer, she is the weaker vessel and her husband is her protector to whom she is to submit and under whose protection she finds safety. And so Satan finds her at a moment when she is vulnerable and unprotected and his strategy is progressively very, very deceptive and it begins with what appears to be a somewhat innocuous question, indeed has God said? This is the first question in the Bible...first question in the Bible. First question in human history.

Up until this time there are no questions, only answers. There are no mysteries, there are no dilemmas until this one. And the question is designed by Satan to start Eve on a path that legitimizes her questioning what God has said. That is the whole issue here, to lead her and along with her husband to question the truthfulness of what God has said.

That's exactly what he does. You could translate this in the Hebrew, so God has said, has He? And for the first time since creation, the most deadly spiritual force ever released in this world was released, smuggled covertly, almost innocently on the surface into the world and that is this deadly force that you as a creature have a right to sit in judgment on what God has said. He leads Eve to question what God has said. And Satan repeated what God said. You shall not eat from any tree of the Garden. But he turns it from a positive to a negative, leaving out the part about you can eat everything else. Twisting, perverting, inverting, putting the emphasis on what you can't do rather than on all that you can do. And in this way he presses the issue of prohibition and the real question that he's raising in her mind is, why in the world would God want to restrict you?

This is the main assault. The question is, you have a right to sit in judgment on God and ask the question, why would He say things that restrict you? This is a negative judgment.

This is a prohibition. This is restrictive and narrow and limiting and the implication is why would God, if He were fully good, do that? There is something in God's character, is the implication, that makes Him want to restrain your free will, that makes Him want to limit your pleasure, your joy, your satisfaction, your fulfillment, yes your freedom.

Somehow God is tampering with your rights. He's taking away some of your choices. And that raises the question about why He would do that. What would make Him do that? Is He cruel? Is that the reason?

And maybe if there's some flaw in His character that makes Him put this limit on you, He is not to be totally trusted. And so Satan has set in her mind the idea that the one prohibition which was really a means by which they could demonstrate obedience now becomes, in Eve's thinking, evidence of a divine character flaw, casting suspicion on God's character and causing her to render judgment on what God has said as if she had a right to determine whether it was good or bad, right or wrong. She has now been set in motion to distrust what God has said.

She responds in a very weak fashion, verse 2, the woman said to the serpent, from the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat. She should have taken a strong stand right there on what she knew to be true about God. She knew God. She knew God was true and spoke only the truth. She knew God was perfect goodness. She had a very clear command.

It was not at all ambiguous. She should have been suspicious of anybody who caused her to question God. Actually she should have been suspicious of a talking snake. And she does make a stab at defending God in verse 3, but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat from it. And then she adds this, or touch it lest you die. Her reply is weak.

And I really believe that this is where the fall occurred, right there, before she ever ate anything. As soon as she did not completely and wholeheartedly and unreservedly trust in the Word of God as true and good and the source of our highest joy and maximum fulfillment, mistrust in God had gained a foothold and sin had entered her heart and the fall had taken place. Not only does she not defend God, but she adds to what God said to make Him seem more harsh by saying, you shall not eat from it or touch it. God didn't say that. But now she is accepting this as unnecessarily restrictive.

In fact, it is so restrictive that she's even making it more restrictive. It's irritating her now that God has put this restriction on her. God has been judged as giving a command that is unacceptable and untrustworthy. And that was the fall, to distrust what God has said.

Everything after this is just evidence of the fall. Verse 4, the serpent said to the woman, you surely shall not die. Satan moves in because he knows where she is. He knows that she has distrusted the Word of God. She doesn't any longer believe that God is necessarily trustworthy.

There is a flaw in his character. He is unnecessarily restrictive and she should be free and she has a right to sit in judgment on what God has done and even to speak of it as more restrictive than it is because she's bought into its negativity. And Satan knows that she has fallen. And so he moves in for a full denial of God's Word and he says, you surely shall not die. God lied...God lied. In fact, God lies and here's an illustration of it. I tell the truth, is what Satan is saying, and he's still saying it today even though he's the arch liar.

You're not going to die. God is not truthful. His Word cannot be trusted as revealed.

He does not have your best interest in view. And so she has bought into the fact that God is flawed and deceptive and needlessly restrictive and takes away freedom and limits joy. And Satan says, you won't die...you won't die. Free yourself from these restrictions. Do what you want, no limits, no judgment, no consequences, be free. A God like that is not loving. A God like that is not kind. A restrictive God, He's law, He's not love. I'm love, says Satan, I give you freedom.

Follow Me and do whatever you want. And then the question is going to be naturally asked in Eve's mind, well why would He do that? Why would He restrain me like that?

And Satan has an answer, verse 5, God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil. He doesn't want you to be like Him. He's jealous, He's envious, He's protective. He wants to remain superior.

He lies because He hates rivals. Where did Satan pick that up? Satan tried to be a rival of God, didn't he? And he was thrown out of heaven. You do what you want, you be free like He is.

He does what He wants and He's free and there's no restrictions on Him and there ought to be no restrictions on you and the only reason He put restrictions on you is because He hates rivals. So the father of lies brought down the whole human race. On the premise that God's Word cannot be trusted as revealed. It is deceptive because God is flawed and He is flawed by jealousy.

Contrast Jesus' perfect trust in God's Word, perfect trust through suffering, severe deprivation and restraint of His own divine prerogatives in His incarnation and particularly in His temptation where He still says, man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. But without taking time to trace the full flow of this satanic assault, Scripture reveals the history that began that day and continues all the way to the end of the book of Revelation. It is a history of attacks on the Word of God through an endless and relentless array of false prophets, false teachers, liars, false apostles, deceivers, all the way from Genesis to Revelation.

And the attack is going on even today. The battle for biblical authority wages in every generation in every location. There is always the battle for the Bible. There is always a need to rise to the defense of Scripture.

I could define my own life in terms of the focus of those battles. If I just break down the ten-year periods of my life and ministry approaching forty years here, in those early years it was a battle over the inerrancy issue and the authority of Scripture. And for ten years I was on the inerrancy council led by Dr. Jim Boice with a hundred scholars and we were working hard, writing, producing material that defended the authority and inerrancy of Scripture.

And out of that came the Chicago statement on biblical inerrancy, monumental statement for the church historically. Once we had dealt with the front attacks of the critics, then along came the mystical movement and we had to deal with that as well. And the next few years of my ministry was a battle to defend the singularity of Scripture because everybody and their brother had a new revelation and a new word of wisdom and a new word of knowledge and there was a proliferation of supposed words from God and words from Jesus and people were accumulating all these revelations. And we were set for the defense of the singularity of Scripture against those kinds of attacks. And then Scripture began to be attacked by the psychologists and the pragmatists who wanted to set the Bible aside and establish the necessity of human wisdom at some point or another to establish truth to which the Bible could add some spiritual insight. And more recently, another issue dealing with the Bible is the attack on its clarity that it's not understandable, that it's not comprehensible, that it's impossible to interpret it accurately or be dogmatic.

It's one assault after another and that's been the battleground and always will be the battleground, always should be because as I said at the beginning, everything that we need is in the Word of God. That's Vital Truth from John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, as he began his series called Making a Case for the Bible here on Grace to You. Now, what John covered today, it's the kind of practical foundational truth that's going to come up whenever you're explaining your faith to others.

So make sure you have ready answers for why the Bible can be trusted. Download Making a Case for the Bible when you contact us today. You can get all five sermons from Making a Case for the Bible at GTY.org.

Both MP3s and transcripts are available free of charge. This is a great series to go through with a Bible study group. Our website, one more time, GTY.org. And thank you for remembering that we are a listener-supported ministry. To help us strengthen people around the world with verse-by-verse Bible teaching, mail your tax-deductible donation to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412. Or you can donate by phone, just call us at 855-GRACE or go to the website GTY.org.

Giving to your local church always comes first, but we're grateful for anything you can give beyond that. Again, to partner with us, call 800-55-GRACE or go to GTY.org. Well, I trust that even today's initial message from Making a Case for the Bible has helped bolster your confidence in Scripture. Tomorrow, John MacArthur will help you know what to say when people argue that God's Word alone is not enough to deal with life's problems. So for John and our entire staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Be here tomorrow for another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.