The Bible is entirely true because it is true in every part. It is the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Proverbs 30 verses 5 and 6, every word of God is pure...every word. Welcome to Grace To You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. In 1976, a documentary film called In Search of Noah's Ark played in churches and theaters across America, and many thought that if the ark had truly been found, it would authenticate the Bible and many people would believe the Gospel. Well, John MacArthur's current study has shown you that no amount of external evidence, no matter how compelling, can ever change the heart of an unbeliever. So if the value of scientific proof is limited, what's the best way to make the case that Scripture is God's Word? John answers that today as he continues his study called Making a Case for the Bible.
And here's John with the lesson. Obviously this ministry is totally dependent upon the Word of the living God, the Scripture, the Bible. We are committed to the Word of God as absolutely true and we are committed to every phrase and every verse and every chapter and every book as having come from God Himself.
The only way we can know God and His will is to have it given to us in a way that is unmistakable and God has chosen to do that in a book, the Bible. The other night I had the opportunity again to be on CNN and to be in another one of those discussions with people who did not agree with me. It seems to be my lot in life and they are usually exceedingly disagreeable. And whenever I am in that kind of environment with unbelievers, other religious leaders, people with other moral viewpoints, I really only have two things to say and whatever the conversation is in one way is immaterial to me.
The subject doesn't matter a lot to me. I'm just looking for ways to say two things. One of them is that Jesus is the only Savior and the other one is that the Bible is the only authority from God. And I want to say those in whatever way I can, calling people to the single authority of the Word of God as over against all human opinion and to the only Savior as Jesus Christ as over against all human religion. The other night, one of the other guests who was a homosexual advocate and a self-confessed Roman Catholic said that I was so caught up in the words of the Bible that I missed the entire message.
Now that is a strange way of thinking. So caught up in the words of the Bible that I have missed its entire message. How else could anyone know the message of the Bible apart from the words of the Bible?
Is that kind of mystical nonsense that has captivated the hearts of millions of people who think somehow there is a subliminal message of love that transcends what the Bible actually says? God gave us a book and in that book He spoke and what He said is exactly what He wanted to say and He desired to say it in a way that we would understand it because we are accountable for it. God has spoken and He has not mumbled and He has spoken clearly and He has spoken precisely and exactly and directly to the matters that concern Him and concern us. And God has sworn in His revelation, the Holy Bible, that He has spoken the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. This is true, it is all true and nothing in it is untrue. It is also all the truth that God desired to reveal to us.
The rest is left for us to know in eternity. And the Bible alone is the true word of the one true God who does not contradict Himself, who does not write other books that say other things that are contrary to what He has said in this book. There is only one God and He has spoken in one book. All other supposed revelations from God are not at all from God. They are the concoctions of men and for the most part, demon-inspired men, from the Koran, for example, the Bhagavad Gita, the writings of Mary Baker, Eddie Patterson Glover, Frye, Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, to all the false prophets, all the seers, all the cultists, all the religious gurus, all the religious leaders, all the world religions, it is all deception, it is all fabrication, both human and demonic, it is all wrong. God has spoken and He has spoken in one book and that book is the Bible.
Now that simplifies the issue. It is not complicated to sort out the matter of religion. Most people think it is complicated to sort out the matter of religion because there are so many competing religions and the idea today is to be tolerant of all of them and to allow everyone to embrace their own religion, feeling that it's all ending up in the same heaven of heavens, no matter how you approach it. But the Bible claims just the opposite, that anything that contradicts the Bible, anything that is a competing source of revelation to the Bible is not from God. If it is not contained in the 66 books of the Bible, it is not the Word of God. If it is not in the 66 books of the Bible, God didn't say it. For all generations through human history, what God has said, He has put in this book. One book made up of two sections, the Old Testament and the New Testament, 66 specific books given to just over 40 writers over a period of about 1,500 years. The Holy Spirit authored it all, put it all together in what we know as the Bible and it is established as the sole divine authority on God's Word. This is why it is the singular duty of man to respond obediently to this one book. It is the response to this one book and what this book says that God requires that determines everyone's eternal destiny and nothing else determines it...nothing else.
What a person does with the Bible determines heaven or hell. Years ago, many years ago now, Protestant denominations eliminated heresy. You might think that was quite an achievement, Protestant denominations eliminated heresy. But the strange twist is that the way they eliminated heresy was not by crushing it with the truth, not by overpowering it with the Word of God, but rather they eliminated the idea of heresy when they eliminated the idea of absolute truth. If there is no such thing as absolute truth, then there can be no such thing as heresy.
If there is no fixed truth, then there can be no discernible error. There is a new kind of inclusivism even in evangelicalism, a new kind of inclusivism that threatens to eradicate truth and therefore eradicate any classification of error and blur everything. And the only hope, of course, in the midst of all of this is to go back to the Word of God. And all this sinful rebellion doesn't change or alter what the Scripture is, whether it's attacked by rationalism, or whether it's attacked by liberalism, or whether it's attacked by what is called neo-orthodoxy, or whether it's attacked by pluralism, or mysticism, or inclusivism, or political correctness, or tolerance, or any other assault. It changes nothing about the nature of this book. It was Jesus who said, not one jot or tittle would in any wise pass from this book until all is fulfilled. It is an eternal book. It is an unchanging book.
It is the anvil in the old story of the man pounding the hammers, the blacksmith and after many years the anvil stood but many hammers had been destroyed. The hammers that have hit the Scripture lie in the rubble the Scripture still stands. The Bible is still the truth of God, the only truth of God and nothing but the truth of God. Now how do we know this to be true? We as Christians know this to be true because the Spirit of God has enlightened us and we talked about that in our last couple of studies and a couple of my very favorite studies that we've ever done.
You can get them on tape. Who can believe the Bible? It is true that the Bible is exactly what it claims to be.
We know that to be true. We know that to be true because the Spirit of God has convinced us of it by a supernatural work of awakening our understanding. But what we now understand is that the Bible is true and as we look at the Word of God, we find that that conviction is supported by what the Bible claims. The Spirit of God has granted you the gift of confidence in the Word. You understand that, but I want you to see how important it is to have the internal evidence of the Scripture to bolster that heart conviction that the Spirit of God has granted to you. If you were to set out to prove that the Bible was true, how would you do it?
You could...you could approach it a lot of ways. You could say this, you could say, well human experience is a good verifier of the truth of the Bible. If you do what the Bible tells you to do, you will experience the result. If you confess your sin and if you put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be regenerated, your life will be transformed.
God will change what you love and who you love and how you love and you will see a dramatic alteration in your life. Biblical experience verifies the veracity of Scripture and it does, but...but there are other people reading other holy books who are having other kinds of experiences. And experience isn't always and never should be the final authority because experience can be falsified.
Different people have been known to see pink elephants when they're Arnon, for example. Somebody else might say, well we could verify the Bible by science, whereas other books make ridiculous, outlandish, outrageous statements about the world, the physical world. The Bible makes very, very scientifically accurate statements about the physical creation, even when it was written before modern science discovered these things to be true. The Bible says the earth turns on an axis. The Bible says the sun drags the solar system, our solar system from one end of space to the other. The Bible says that there is a water system, a hydrological system that works in an incredible cycle.
It talks about the weight of the mountains. This is called isostasy, the whole world is balanced. If you have, for example, a basketball that is out of balance and you roll it, it would go like this, like this, like this. If the world were doing that, we would be jumping and jumping and popping up at intervals.
It turns perfectly because it's perfectly balanced. That's the science of isostasy and it is God who weighs the hills and is balanced. We can go to science, we can look at science and say the Bible is amazingly scientific. To show you how amazing it is, in 1903 a man died by the name of Herbert Spencer. Herbert Spencer was a scientist. He was heralded by the world. He was given all kinds of prizes as a ground-breaking scientist.
His greatest achievement was categorical. It was Herbert Spencer who announced to the scientific world that everything that exists in the universe falls into five categories. One of five, time, force, action, space and matter. That's what he said and he said it in that order, time, force, action, space and matter. Nice going, Herbert.
How about this? The beginning, that's time, God, that's force, created, that's action, the heavens, that's space and the earth, that's matter. Right there in the first verse. It's all right, Herbert, you were trying to find it without that verse. We can go to science and we can say that science verifies the Bible, but we...while we would get general affirmation, a little better than experience, we'd get a general affirmation that's pretty amazing stuff, somebody could easily rise up and say, well that doesn't really mean that everything in there is true. Somebody else might come along and say, well we could look at...we could look at prophecy. There are prophecies in the Bible that did come to pass. And we could say, well at least the scientific parts of the Bible are true and at least the experiential parts of the Bible are true. And certainly when God said certain nations were going to fall and they fell, and when God said He was going to drown the world and He drowned the world, those things came true. So there are certain prophecies that did come to pass and that means that somebody who wrote the Bible knows something more than we know because he understood physical science before anybody did.
He understood events before they even happened so as to be able to predict them. We can look at those kinds of things and they can support our understanding of Scripture. You can look at archeology. You can traverse the ruins, the tells of the Middle East and you can go into the museums there and you can find things from the Rosetta Stone on and caves in Egypt with certain drawings on them that indicate the Hebrews came there. You can find in the coat of Hammurabi a coat of Law that even predates Moses which indicates that men were from the beginning under Law and they weren't freewheeling apes swinging from trees. You can find a lot of archeological evidence and support for things that the Bible says came to pass.
You can even find the crumbled walls of Jericho in a strange configuration which fits perfectly the idea that they fell outward flat. So you can look at that and you can say, well, at least those parts of the Bible are absolutely true because archeology verifies them. We have never found anything in the Bible that is scientifically incorrect, never found anything in the Bible that is historically incorrect.
Science verifies everything the Bible says. You say, what about the day when they said the sun stood still? Well obviously the sun didn't stand still, the earth stopped revolving. But from the perception of the person standing here, the sun stopped.
That's perception. When you got up this morning, you didn't look out your window and say, oh, what a lovely earth revolving. That wasn't earth revolving. The sun did not move in the direction you thought it moved, the earth moved.
But from our perception, you say it's a sunrise, you say it's a sunset. So there are those kinds of things in the Bible, but nothing in the Bible contradicts science, and nothing in the Bible contradicts history, and nothing in the Bible contradicts a promise that God gave as if it didn't come true the way He said it would come true. But before we look at any of those things as supporting evidences, it all begins by listening to what the Bible claims.
Now this is remarkable. Let me just give you two words to think about, infallible and inerrant...infallible. And I like to use that word maybe just in a personal way, you could argue a lot about what it could mean, it's got a little flexibility in it, as does the word inerrant. But let's use the word infallible to say that God has so inspired Scripture that it is the sure, safe, reliable, eternally true rule and guide in all matters in total. Let's use infallible to speak of the totality of Scripture. It is the whole truth.
We're looking at it from the bird's eye view, the big picture. It is an infallible document. That is what it affirms in full is true. Psalm 19, 7, the Law of the Lord is perfect. Psalm 18, 30, as for God, His way is perfect, or blameless. The Word of the Lord is tried, or tested, proven.
Psalm 119, Thy Word is very pure. Thy Law is truth. All Thy commandments are truth. The sum of Thy Word is truth. Every one of Thy righteous ordinances endures forever, for all Thy commandments are righteous. Psalm 111, 7, all His precepts are sure. Romans 7, 12, God's Word is holy, righteous and good. And you have in Deuteronomy 4, too, do not add to Scripture. You have in Revelation 22, 18 and 19, do not add to Scripture, do not take away from Scripture. It is in total complete and infallible. In John 10, 35, these words are given and they are significant if brief and to the point.
And as always, the Lord's economy of words is stunning. In the tenth chapter of John's gospel, verse 35, Jesus says at the end of the verse, the Scripture cannot be broken...the Scripture cannot be broken. It is like a chain, all the verses are linked, all the chapters are linked, all the 66 books are linked, the testaments are linked and there is nowhere where it can be broken.
There is no place where the chain could be broken. It is in toto, the truth of God, true in total. That is what it claims, that is what it demands from us as to confidence and trust.
Second word is inerrant...inerrant. And that looks at it from the worm's eye view, not looking at the total, but looking at every word. Every word is true. Every word in the original autographs as inspired by God is free from error, falsehood, mistake, inaccuracy. So the total truth of the message of the Word is safeguarded by every word being a true word from God.
The Bible is entirely true because it is true in every part. It is the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Proverbs 30 verses 5 and 6, and we're giving you the confession of God in His own Word as to His Word, Proverbs 30 verses 5 and 6, every word of God is pure...every word. Psalm 12, 6, the words of the Lord are pure words as silver tested in a furnace refined seven times. And the psalmist is looking for some kind of analogy to express the purity of the Word. In Psalm 119, 140 the psalmist says, Thy Word is very pure. So whether you're talking about infallibility, the big picture, or whether you're talking about inerrancy, the small picture, the combination of the two speaks of the Bible's truthfulness.
It is true. This John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, his current study here on Grace to You is titled, Making a Case for the Bible. Well, it's one thing to make a case for the Bible, to build confidence in it, but John, what about the issue of growing in the knowledge of God's Word? For that Christian who has never really learned how to study scripture and tap into its riches, and especially for new believers who are just becoming familiar with the Bible, what would you recommend? How should they read the Bible, and where should they start, and how much should they read each day?
What would your advice be? You know, I can only tell you what through the years has been a very useful approach to that. I think when you read the scripture, you need to read it repeatedly. I think you need to read books of the scripture, because every book is a story. Every book has a beginning and a middle and an end.
Every book of the Bible is going somewhere. And I would suggest that you start with the New Testament. The way to read it is to read repetitiously, and this is what I've suggested through the years.
Read a book every day for 30 days. I remember when I started this as a very young person, I started with 1 John, because I thought 1 John, while it appears on the surface simple, was really very complicated. So I read it every day for 30 days, and it was so compelling, it took me, you know, what, a half an hour at the most to read it carefully, 30 days. At the end of 30 days, I thought, wow, this thing is starting to make sense. I'm starting to put this together, because the Bible is its own best interpreter. And then I said, I'm going to read this another 30 days, and then I read it 90 days. By the time I finished reading 1 John 90 days, I knew everything that was in it.
I knew where every statement was on the page, which column, which side of the page. I knew, I could literally see in my mind, visualize the book. And I realized that I began to grasp that book at a depth just by repeated reading. Then I would do another short book like Philippians, then I would go back to Matthew and read seven chapters for 30 days, seven more for 30 days. And in two and a half years, basically, you can do the whole New Testament, and you will be astounded at how just familiarity with the text helps you interpret the scripture. Look, God didn't reveal his word in such a way as it's impossible to understand.
It is revelation, and it can be understood. Now, beyond that, for the depth of it, you get a study Bible that's got some notes and some explanation, or you get commentaries, or you get books and resources that help you dig a little bit deeper. But the first way to apprehend the Word of God is to read it systematically, and this will be revolutionary in your Christian life.
Thanks, Jon. That is great advice. And friend, with that advice in mind, let me recommend our flagship resource, the MacArthur Study Bible. You can order a copy when you contact us today.
With 25,000 footnotes, the MacArthur Study Bible gives you insight into the original languages, history, and cultural background of scripture, helping you apply its life-changing principles day by day. You can order when you call us at 855-GRACE, or you can purchase it from our website, gty.org. The MacArthur Study Bible is available in hardcover, leather, even premium goatskin.
Again, to order, call 855-GRACE, or go to gty.org. That's our website, gty.org, and while you're there, make sure you take advantage of the thousands of free resources that are available. You'll find helpful blog articles by Jon and other staff members. There are multiple daily devotionals. There are more than 3,600 of Jon's sermons, free to download in MP3 and transcript format.
And all of those free Bible study tools are designed to help you apply the truth of scripture in your daily walk with Christ. Our website, one more time, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and our entire staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for joining us today. Be back at the same time tomorrow when John MacArthur continues showing you why you can trust the Bible as your guide for all of life. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
