Bill Graham writes: "The Bible was written by 40 writers, over a period of 1,600 years, in 66 books. And the great theme from one end of the Bible to the other is redemption."
In the fourth chapter of Hebrews, verse 12, it says: “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
It is the world’s best-seller. Yet this book, for the past 200 years, has been under increased attack. Many people, even within the church, have come to doubt whether the Bible is authoritative and trustworthy. When you talk about the Bible, someone will allege “Bibliolatry.” In other words, worshiping the Bible and not the Christ of the Bible. No, this is not Bibliolatry; the only knowledge we have of Jesus Christ is in the Bible.
Today there’s a growing movement to do away with the Bible. And if this movement succeeds, anarchy will rule. This generation must face the appalling fact that it’s either the Bible, or back to the jungles, because that’s exactly what will happen.
Now the Bible teaches that God loves. All over the world men hunger to know God. Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, all the religions of the world, arise from man’s searching for God. But God has already revealed Himself, and it’s reasonable for me to suppose that God, an intelligent Being, would somehow reveal Himself to us as a human race. Even our most atheistic scientists are beginning to say that something is behind the universe.
There is some sort of order behind the universe and there must be some sort of intelligence. They may not say it’s God, but we call Him God. This Intelligence Who orders, and arranges, and creates, and makes us—down in our hearts we hunger to know Him.
“Down through the years it’s been ridiculed, burned, refuted, destroyed, but it lives on. It is the anvil that has worn out many hammers. Most books are born, live a few short years, then go the way of all the earth; they’re forgotten. But not the Bible.”
Has God revealed Himself?
He has revealed Himself in nature. I look through a telescope and I know there’s a God. I look through a microscope and I know there must be a God.
And He has revealed Himself in His Son, Jesus Christ. But we get our knowledge of Christ out of the Bible. Only one or two other men contemporary with Christ ever mentioned that He ever lived, Josephus being one. Our total knowledge of Christ comes from the Bible.
The Bible was written by 40 writers, over a period of 1,600 years, in 66 books. And the great theme from one end of the Bible to the other is redemption—God’s love for the human race and God redeeming man and bringing man back to Himself after man had rebelled against God. That’s what the Bible is all about.
Down through the years it’s been ridiculed, burned, refuted, destroyed, but it lives on. It is the anvil that has worn out many hammers. Most books are born, live a few short years, then go the way of all the earth; they’re forgotten. But not the Bible. The Bible is preserved. It lives on.
The prophetic messages of the Bible are coming true in our day. In 2 Timothy, written almost 2,000 years ago, it says, “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power…” (2 Timothy 3:1-5). Isn’t that happening? The Bible says in the latter period travel shall increase, knowledge will increase (Daniel 12:4). Look what has happened in the last 75 years in the world. The whole world has become a neighborhood without being a brotherhood. That’s precisely what the Bible said 500 years before Christ.
And Jesus, 2,000 ye
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