The Miracle of the Bible

Welcome to this edition of PowerPoint with Jack Graham. A little later in the program will tell you how you can get a copy of Dr. Graham's brand new book, Reignite. But first, here's his message, The Miracle of the Bible. Now would you take God's Word and turn with me to 1 Peter chapter 1. And I want to speak to you today on the subject, The Miracle of the Bible.

What is this amazing book? The Bible is alive, it is authentic, it is authoritative, and it is absolute. It is the living, eternal Word of God.

The foundation of our faith. Without the book, God's book, we have no faith because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. We do not worship the Bible, we worship God.

But the Bible tells us who God is, what God is like, and how we relate to Him, how we communicate with Him, and how we worship Him. Nothing matters more than this truth that the Bible is the living Word of God. Peter knew this, and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he wrote these words in verses 23 and following in chapter 1 of 1 Peter, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but imperishable, through the living and abiding Word of God, for all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the Word of the Lord remains forever. And this Word is the good news that was preached to you. I have loved the Bible since I was a small boy.

I'm certainly thankful for a family, including my grandfather, who introduced me to the Bible when I was a small child. My love for God's Word has only increased. So I want to bring you this message today on the miracle of the Bible, and I want to mention four miracles of the Bible.

So get your Bibles open and mark this down. One is the miracle of inspiration. The miracle of inspiration. Now the word inspiration literally means breathed out, and that's appropriate because the inspiration of the Bible means the Spirit of the living God breathed out His Word. He spoke His Word and just as breath, I'm using breath in my lungs and through my larynx to speak out the Word of God.

This is my breath speaking. So God breathed out His Word. The Bible is not an inspiring book. The Bible is an inspired book, the inspired book, and there's a difference. Songs can be inspiring. Music can be inspiring.

Great literature can be inspiring. But God's Word is inspired, breathed out by God Himself. Let me give you a couple of scriptures on that.

You're in 1 Peter. 2 Peter chapter 1 tells us what happened in the inspiration of the Scripture knowing this, this is verse 20, 2 Peter chapter 1, knowing this first of all that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation, that it is not man-made. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, here's what happened, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. The idea of being carried along by the Holy Spirit there is as, it's like a sail catching the wind.

And you hoist the sail and catch the wind and you're moved along. These men, the writers of the Scripture, they were moved and motivated and managed by the Spirit of God. This is a God book. It is the God-given book. And when the Bible speaks, God speaks. So 2 Timothy chapter 3 is another one, all Scripture is breathed out, inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

So let's put this together. All Scripture, breathed out by God. Men carried along by the Holy Spirit gave us these words. Frankly there are 40 or so authors, or writers I should say, of the Bible, human writers. But there is one author.

Many writers from various backgrounds, life experiences, personalities and vocabularies, but only one author. God wrote the book. Fact is that the Bible is not a book, but a library.

It is a library of 66 books, divided into Old Testament, 39 books in the Old Testament and New Testament, 27 books in the New Testament. Law and prophecy and music and history and science and all of these things are written in the Bible. And music and history and science and poetry and adventure with 40 different authors and yet there is the unity and within it the diversity and then the continuity of the theme and the text and the truth of Scripture. We believe in the verbal plenary inspiration of the Scriptures. The verbal plenary inspiration of the Scriptures.

I've told you what inspiration means. What does it mean to say we believe in verbal inspiration? That means that the Bible, when God inspired, breathed out His Word, was not just in big ideas or ideals or truths or thoughts put into the heart of human beings who wrote their own words. No, the verbal inspiration of the Bible means that God breathed out His Word through words. Just as you can't not have mathematics without numbers, you cannot have the Word without words. Jesus said that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Jesus said that heaven and earth will pass away but there will not be a jot or a tittle of His Word that will pass away.

Not even a punctuation point, an apostrophe or a punctuation of any kind. God has verbally inspired His Word. So it's in the details, not just in the big idea, but God gave us His Word and He gave it through words.

That's verbal meaning words. Plenary means all of the Scripture is infallible, inspired, and inerrant. And yes, I believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. He used the personalities, the life experiences, the vocabularies of human beings, but when these wrote, the writers wrote it, they wrote down the Word of God and the words of God.

Plenary means not just part of it but part of it is inspired. This is why Paul declared in proclaiming the Word of God, we preach the whole counsel of God, both Old Testament and New Testament. The Bible is true through and through.

It's a miracle. Not legends or lies or fables or fictions but God's truth. There are multiple evidences that the Bible is inspired, breathed out by God. But do you know, to me, the most compelling evidence that the Bible is the inspired Word of God? Jesus believed the Bible is the inspired Word of God. In fact, He said, I've not come to abolish the law of the prophets but to fulfill them. Jesus believed the Bible and He taught from the Scriptures and He practiced the teaching of the Scripture. He often spoke of some of the most difficult and so-called questionable portions of Scripture and expressed His faith and belief in them.

For example, creation and Adam and Eve as being literal Abraham, the father of the nation, Moses, and the Ten Commandments, Noah and the ark. People question, is that true? Is that a fable?

Is that a legend? Jesus taught it as truth. He says, as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the coming of the Son of Man. And then there's that fishy story about Jonah.

In the belly of that fish for three days and three nights. Jesus believed and taught from that story. He said, just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights, so must the Son of Man, the Son of God be in the belly of the earth. Speaking of His resurrection, I don't know about you but I'm going with Jesus on the Bible and the truth and the truthfulness of God's Word. Ultimately, the Bible is God's love letter to His children telling us how we can live eternal and extraordinary lives. The Bible is God's redemption story. It is the story of how He has rescued us from sin and death and hell. How He has delivered us from ourselves and forgiven us and filled us with meaning and purpose in life. It is the all-sufficient Word of God. Everything you need to know about God and His truth is in His Word.

Sufficient for everything in life, for faith and practice. You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and today's message, The Miracle of the Bible. Bring fresh passion and joy to the world. Bring passion and joy to your faith with Dr. Graham's newest book, Reignite, an intimate account of how God led Dr. Graham through one of the darkest seasons of his life.

Whether you're facing disappointment, doubt, depression or heartache, Reignite offers biblical insights to encourage you in your pain and help fan the flames of faith in your life. And it's our way to thank you for your gift to PowerPoint. This is the last day of this offer, so call 1-800-795-4627. That's 1-800-795-4627.

You can also text the word PowerPoint to 313131. And don't forget to visit Jack Graham.org where you can shop our e-store, give a gift online or sign up for Dr. Graham's free daily email devotional. Our website again is Jack Graham.org. Now let's get back to today's message, The Miracle of the Bible. Miracle number two, we believe there is the miracle of preservation. Back to our text in 1 Peter chapter 1, he says, the grass withers but the word of God stands forever. God's Word, God's Word is alive and abides forever. It is incorruptible, indestructible and indefensible.

It is living and lasting. Peter compared it to a seed. There's life in a seed, the incorruptible seed of the Word of God. You cannot destroy the Bible. Through the years, men have burned it, banned it, buried it and banished it and yet the Word of God lives. It has been dismissed, it has been doubted, it has been distorted, it has been discredited, it has been denied, but the Word of our God stands forever. It is preserved and the same God who gave us His Word has guarded His Word and preserved it and protected it and propelled it from generation to generation. Its influence remains. Now, of course the devil wants to destroy the Bible and always has. When the serpent slithered into the Garden of Eden in Genesis chapter 3, the first temptation came with these words, has God said?

You're never more like the devil than when you're putting a question mark on the Word of God. Its influence remains. Bernard Ramm, who was a great scholar, said a thousand times over the death knell of the Bible has been sounded, the funeral procession formed, the inscription cut on the tombstone and committal read, but somehow the courts never stays put. The Bible is alive. Truth is eternal. The Bible is true forever and for everyone.

You will never wake up one morning and discover that God has lied and that the Bible is untrue. Like Jesus Himself, the Bible is the same yesterday, today, and forever, preserved, protected. It is ancient but alive. It is not a mere ancient relic or an old book. As the writer of Hebrews says, the Word of God is living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword, like a scaffold, like a sword piercing to the division of the soul and of the spirit of joints and of marrow and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

It's not a relic. It is the relevant Word of God. The third miracle I want to mention is the miracle of illumination.

The miracle of illumination. Back at 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 22, just skipping back a verse to verse 22, speaks of the Word of God having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, loving one another earnestly from a pure heart. He speaks of this Word and obedience to this Word, purifying our hearts.

How so? The psalmist put it this way in Psalm 119 and verse 18, open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. That is the Word of God. Before you can understand the Bible, your eyes must be opened. Spiritual eyes must be opened. Now, a person without Christ is living in darkness, but we then see the light who is Christ. And our eyes are open, not only to Jesus, but to His Word.

You will never know this book until you know Jesus. Paul would tell us that the natural person, the person in their natural state, their unsaved state, has no comprehension, no appetite or aptitude towards the Word of God. If you're not a believer and you look at this and you realize, I just don't get it. People are not lying.

They don't get it. There's a spiritual blindness. And I can tell you if a person has no appetite or interest or desire for God's Word, that person 99.9% of the time is not a saved person. Because if you are saved, Christ is living in you. If you're walking and following Jesus, you'll have a hunger for God's Word. But until you have Christ in your life, you'll never, you'll never know the Bible.

You'll never understand the Bible. Jesus, the incarnate Word, is inseparably linked to the Bible, His inerrant, inspired Word. The living Word, Jesus, and the Word on the leaf, the paper, the Bible, are not the same, but they are inseparably connected. This is why John, exiled on the Isle of Patmos, spoke of the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Because that's what the Bible is all about. In John chapter 5, verses 17 and 18, do not think that I've come to abolish the law of the prophets. I've not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.

For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. And Jesus spoke of how we are to understand the Scripture in chapter 14 of John's Gospel. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I've said to you. Thus we have the Gospels because the Holy Spirit reminded the apostles, the disciples, Paul later and others who gave us New Testament books, the Holy Spirit moved on them and they remembered and they reviewed and they wrote the Word of God. Jesus said in John 16, verse 13, when the Spirit of truth comes, the Holy Spirit, He will guide you into all truth.

Now, this is vital. When Jesus left this earth, He gave us the Helper, the Counselor, the Holy Spirit. Christ lives in us.

The risen Lord is alive in us. And the Spirit of God convicts us and convinces us and converts us and then continues the work within us and counsels us. God speaks to us by His Spirit through His Word. God has given us the Holy Spirit to teach us, to help us understand what God is saying.

That's called illumination. It's the illumination of the Holy Spirit. It's illumination of the Holy Scriptures when the author teaches us and helps us to apply the Word of God and appropriate its truth into our lives. Well, one final word and that is the miracle of transformation. When you read and study God's Word and meditate upon God's truth, then your life is changed. In 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 2, He says, "'Desire like a baby the milk of the Word of God.'" God has placed a miracle in your hands and He wants to get it into your heart. The Bible is a book small enough to hold in your hands and large enough to study for a lifetime.

It truly is a miracle book. When you ponder it and personalize it, proclaim it, it begins to change you and cleanse you. Jesus said, "'Sanctify them by Thy truth, by Your Word.'"

So the study of the Bible is not of academic interest alone. It's not so much about information and more and more information, it's relational, it's transformational, it is personal, it is life-changing. The Psalm has said, "'Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.'" It is like bread to the hungry.

It's like a fire in the soul. The Psalm has said, Psalm 39 3, "'My heart became hot within me as I mused, the fire burned, then I spoke with my tongue.'" When the fire of God's Word burns in you, then you speak with your tongue.

You cannot keep it to yourself. You speak with boldness and clarity, the Word of God. And I pray this for you, that you would have Jesus in your heart and the Word of God in your hand and on your lips and heaven on your horizon. You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and today's message, The Miracle of the Bible. Chances are you've faced your share of crisis.

Maybe you're even in the fight of your life right now. Or maybe you're simply feeling exhausted by the busyness of life and sapped of spiritual strength. Whatever you're facing, we want to help fan the flame of faith in your life by sending you Dr. Graham's newest book, Reignite.

This personal account of how God led Dr. Graham through his own crisis will help you focus on God during difficult seasons so you can experience fresh passion and joy in Jesus. And we'll send you a copy as thanks for your gift today. This is the last day of this offer, so call today. Call 1-800-795-4627. That's 1-800-795-4627. You can also text the word PowerPoint to 313131. And don't forget to visit Jack Graham.org where you can shop our e-store, give a gift online, or sign up for Dr. Graham's free daily email devotional.

Our website again is Jack Graham.org. Pastor, what is your PowerPoint for today? Well, let me start by saying that while there are questions in the minds of skeptics, there's no question in the Word of God as to the authority, the accuracy, and the authenticity of the Bible. And one of the greatest proponents of this fact is the Bible itself. God tells us throughout His Word that the Scriptures are trustworthy and dependable.

Psalm 119 89 says, Forever, O Lord, Your Word is firmly fixed in the heavens. And 2 Timothy 3 16 says, All Scripture is breathed out by God. So you see, the Bible is not a mystical existential experience, but rather all Scripture is breathed out from the very heart, mind, and mouth of God, each and every word. The Bible does not originate with man, but with God. And when God breathed out the words of Scripture, He breathed them into human instruments.

Nothing was added that should have been omitted, and nothing was omitted that should have been added. But don't just take my word for it. The number one authority on the Scripture is the Lord Jesus Himself. He learned the Scriptures as a child and believed them. In fact, we even see Jesus in Scripture referring to some of the very stories that some people struggle with most often. For example, in Matthew chapter 19, Jesus referred to the creation of Adam and Eve. In Matthew chapter 24, Jesus referred to the account of Noah and the flood of chapter 12. Jesus spoke of Jonah in the belly of the fish. Not only did He believe the account, He attaches His own resurrection to the reality of Jonah. So you see, Jesus trusted the Scriptures. He believed them and spoke from them. And you can trust them too. The Bible is inerrant, it is infallible, it is sufficient, and it is supernatural. I urge you to settle this issue once and for all.

Believe the Word of God as Jesus believed. And that is today's Power Point. Remember when you give a gift to Power Point today, we'll send you Dr. Graham's brand new book, Reignite, as our thanks. Call 1-800-795-4627. That's 1-800-795-4627. You can also text the word Power Point to 313131. Text Power Point to 313131. And join Dr. Graham next time when he brings a message about the benefit of connecting with other Christians around you. That's next time on Power Point with Jack Graham. Power Point with Jack Graham is sponsored by Power Point Ministries. . .