Love Worth Finding

Guest (Male): Listen closely to Adrian Rogers as he explains the power of the word of God.

Adrian Rogers: You will never be any greater in your Christian life than your conviction concerning the word of God. The Bible is not the book of the month. It is the book of the ages. It has outlived, outloved, outlifted, outreached, outranked all other books put together. There's no book like the Bible. We read the Bible and the Bible reads us.

Guest (Male): 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 Second Timothy chapter 3 verse 16 as Adrian Rogers reveals more on how to know the Bible is the word of God.

Adrian Rogers: Find if you will Second Timothy chapter 3 and verse 16. Here is a rudimentary, fundamental verse in the word of God. Listen to it. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

You will never be any greater in your Christian life than your conviction concerning the word of God. 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 has outlived, outloved, outlifted, outreached, outranked all other books put together. There's no book like the Bible. We read the Bible and the Bible reads us. Now there's 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's 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.

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 the word of God. Why is it so important to understand the Bible's 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.

These things have I 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 I pray God that he will write these five reasons indelibly upon your heart 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. In the Louvre in Paris, in one section of books, 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 called 51 incontestable facts that prove the Bible scientifically wrong. 51 scientific facts. Let me tell you the interesting thing about that. Today, more than a hundred 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 me more faith in the Bible, just a little more faith in the scientist.

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. But men didn't always know that. You would not know it unless somebody had taught you.

The ancient Egyptians, who were incredibly intelligent 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.

"He, God, stretcheth out the north over the empty place and 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 in the 14th century. It was so devastating that one out of four people died. 1, 2, 3, you're dead. Think about it. Devastating. They tried to do everything they could to stop the black plague.

They couldn't figure out what caused it and everybody was frightened of the black plague. Estimated 60 million people died in one of the greatest natural disasters in human history. 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." There it is, if he has the plague, quarantine him. Get him away. That's what they do today with people with SARS. That's what they do today when people have these communicable diseases.

You put away, you quarantine. Well, now 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. In 1840, 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 the hands. And so 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 a 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 an 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. But then one time 11 out of 12 died 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 when a man dieth in a tent, all that come into the tent and all that is in the tent shall be unclean seven days." That is for the bacteria to die.

And notice this, "And every open vessel which hath no covering bound upon it, it is unclean. And whosoever toucheth one that is slain with a sword in the open fields or a dead body or a bone of a man or a grave shall 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 and the Bible. Now, secondly. I believe 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 it, the Bible's 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 have told you earthly things and you believe not, how shall 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. So writing was an art that was not known in Moses' day. But there was another man who, Dr. Petrie and others in northern Egypt, came across some tablets.

I studied about these in school many years ago, the Tell 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 a 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 and as we've 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 Tekel Upharsin." 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 was the last king of Babylon. And we have no record of any 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. Nabonidus 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.

But now question. Suppose they had not found the cylinder with Belshazzar'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 makes 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 shall 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 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 eternally. Amen.

Guest (Male): Would you like to follow Jesus right now? Pray something like this from your heart. "O God in heaven, I know I'm a sinner and I'm separated from you because of that sin. But I believe that Jesus lived a sinless life and gave himself for me on the cross and rose again to new life.

And I trust him fully for my salvation today. Come into my life, change me from the inside out, make me a new creation, and help me to follow you from this day forward. I pray in the name of Jesus, amen." If you prayed a prayer like that from your heart just now, let us know.

We'd love to celebrate with you and invite you to our discover Jesus page on the website. You'll find answers there you may need about your newfound faith. We have a response section for everyone there. You can share your testimony with us. Tell us how this message made a difference in your life.

But especially if you've consecrated your life, if you've prayed that prayer, go to lwf.org/radio and click discover Jesus. We would love to welcome you to God's forever family. Let us hear from you today.

Cary Vaughn: Hi, this is Cary Vaughn and this program has been brought to you by Love Worth Finding, a non-profit ministry showcasing the powerful preaching and teaching of Pastor Adrian Rogers. We operate solely through the generous gifts of individual supporters just like you.

To give a gift today, call 1-877-LOVEGOD. That's 1-877-LOVEGOD. Or write to us at Love Worth Finding, Box 38-600, Memphis, Tennessee, 38183. You can also connect with us online by going to lwf.org/radio. There, we offer helpful resources inspired by the timely teaching of Pastor Adrian Rogers.

Additionally, you can sign up for daily emails, donate to the ministry, and learn more about how to become an ambassador of the word. Thank you so much for listening today. Be sure to join us next time for more profound truth simply stated right here on Love Worth Finding.

Guest (Male): I want to share what a student had to say about one of our new online courses. She writes this, "I've taught Sunday School and led children to Christ and family, but never felt prepared to share the gospel with strangers. This material has helped me understand how to walk others through it. Thank you, I'll go through it again."

You know, at Love Worth Finding, we are honored to be able to share these timeless teachings and the exciting new resources we develop to help you flourish in your faith. And that's why when you donate to the ministry this month, we want to send a copy of our new resource, In the Beginning God: Timeless Truth for Today's Culture.

This is a pocket-sized question and answer book drawn from the messages of Pastor Rogers, specifically his teaching from the book of Genesis. Request the book when you call with a gift at 1-877-LOVEGOD or give online at lwf.org/radio.