Word of God Part One
King James Bible Study Correspondence Course
An Outreach of Highway Evangelistic Ministries
5311 Windridge lane ~ Lockhart, Florida 32810 ~ USA
© Copyright kjbscc 2004 Lesson 11A The Word of GOD 07/22/2005 10:56 AM
1
THE WORD OF GOD
Lesson 11A
The Old and New Testaments stand and fall together as the word of God. The New Testament quotes frequently from the Old Testament as the word of God, while the Old Testament foretells many of the events recorded in the New Testament. Thus, if we succeed in proving that the Old Testament is the word of God, our task is complete.
Jesus and the apostles had, and read, and used the Old Testament just as we have it now. Jesus' testimony regarding the scriptures is of the greatest importance, especially His testimony AFTER His resurrection, which we will consider in this chapter.
1. Jesus Christ the Lord quoted freely from the Bible as the word of God and from those very books that have been most questioned. I'll give several examples of this.
First of all, in John 3 Jesus is speaking to a religious leader by the name of Nicodemus, a man of the Pharisees who had come by night to question Him. In verses 14 and 15 Jesus says to him, And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
In the book of Numbers, which has been attacked by scholars and critics of the Bible who claim that it is not true, we have the record of the time the children of Israel wandered through the wilderness on their way to the promised land. Because of their sin and rebellion God sent fiery serpents among them that bit many of the people. As a result, multitudes of people were dropping dead in the desert.
God spoke to Moses and told him to take a brazen serpent (a serpent of brass) and put it upon a pole and lift the pole high in the air so that those bitten could see it. Whosoever would look upon that serpent would live. They were saved when they believed God enough to obey His instructions.
In John 3, the Lord Jesus Christ teaches us that that serpent on the pole was a picture of Himself. He would die on the cross for all men so that anyone who would look to Him by faith, though he had been bitten by the stinging serpent of sin, could still live.
Not only does the Lord Jesus Christ teach this, but by so doing He testifies to the fact that the Old Testament book of Numbers is the truth. According to Jesus it is, indeed, the word of God.
In Matthew 22:30-32 we read, For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
2
There are those who did not believe in a literal, physical, bodily resurrection. The Lord Jesus Christ told them that they were wrong. He said that there would, indeed, be a physical, literal, bodily resurrection - not a reincarnation, and not a transcendency into the spirit world, but that the literal body would actually rise from the dead to face God at the judgment. Not only did the Lord Jesus Christ state this and prove it by appealing to the Old Testament scriptures, but in so doing He testified to the truth of the book of Exodus. Throughout all the centuries of Christianity scholars and critics have attacked the second book of the Bible. In the book of Exodus we read of the Passover Lamb and its blood being shed as a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ dying for our salvation (1 Corinthians 5:7). We read of the children of Israel passing through the Red Sea, a picture of our baptism
(1 Corinthians 10:1-4). We read in the book of Exodus of God giving His laws, rules and commandments to man. Therefore, when the critics and skeptics attack the book of Exodus they are undermining faith in the great truths it contains. But, my friend, the Lord Jesus Christ, by quoting from Exodus, testified to the fact that it is, and was, and always shall be, the pure and perfect word of God. If you trust Jesus you must trust the book of Exodus.
In Matthew 19, Jesus is once again dealing with the Pharisees. Look carefully at verses 3 and 4: The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him. Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female. Here the Lord Jesus Christ not only testifies that evolution is a lie, but, as the Creator of man. He testifies that the book of Genesis is true.
Genesis is the most frequently attacked and maligned book in the Bible, but not by Jesus. According to the Lord, Genesis is indeed the pure and perfect word of God and is to be trusted, INCLUDING the very earliest chapters which detail and record God's creation of the heavens and the earth and all that in them is.
You see, our world today is filled with religious people who hate God. Our churches and seminaries are filled with religious educators, teachers, preachers, ministers, prophets, priests, and evangelists who would call God a liar as quick as they would call their mama "Mother." Beloved, these people attack the book of Genesis. They say it's a lie. They call it a myth. They regard it a moral fairy tale. It is accused of being an invention of Moses or some other man.
But the Lord Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, said the book of Genesis was true. He held it to be right and rebuked the religious leaders of his day for not having read and believed it. He went on in Matthew 19:8 to say. He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. The Lord Jesus Christ testified to the truth of the book of Genesis. In Matthew 12, here they come again. (Beware of men who always want to argue and debate.) Look at verses 38-41: Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master,
3
we would see a sign from thee. But he answered and said unto them. An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.
I know what infidels tell you! They say there is no way a whale could have swallowed Jonah. They tell you there is no way that the book of Jonah can be anything but a story, a myth or a fairy tale.
"Impossible," says the wayward son of Adam. But, my friend, the things, which are impossible with man, are possible with God. The book of Jonah teaches that a GREAT fish that God had specially prepared for the very purpose of ingesting a disobedient prophet swallowed Jonah. The Lord Jesus Christ said it was a whale. Now, I don't know who has told you that the book of Jonah is a myth or a lie or a fairy tale, but I am telling you that the Lord Jesus Christ believed the book of Jonah.
Apart from Genesis, no portion of the Bible has been abused like the book of Daniel. Yet, notice the certainty with which Jesus stands upon its very words in Matthew 24:15-16: When ye therefore shall ye the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains. In the coming great tribulation men's very lives will depend upon believing the book of Daniel - according to the Lord.
So, to repeat point number one: Jesus quoted freely from the Bible as the word of God and from those very books that have been most questioned.
2. Jesus predicated His own claims of being the Messiah on the prophecies of Old Testament scripture. In Luke 24 the Lord Jesus Christ was walking along the road to Emmaus with two disciples. These disciples were very sad. Jesus asked them why they were so sad and they told Him that the One they had hoped was their Messiah had been crucified. They said that there had been those who had gone to the sepulcher early that morning and found the tomb empty, and the body of Jesus gone. They told Him they were upset about not knowing what had become of the body. Look at the Lord's response in verses 25-27: Then he said unto them, 0 fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
According to the Bible, Moses (that's the first five books of the Bible - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) and ALL the prophets (everything from Joshua through Malachi in your Old Testament) were speaking, writing, and testifying of Jesus Christ.
4
In verse 44 we read. And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. According to Jesus, the Law of Moses, the Psalms, and the prophetic writings were all the inspired word of God testifying of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. In verses 45 and 46 we read. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures. And said unto them. Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day.
This is the gospel message - Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, was buried and the third day Jesus rose again according to the scriptures
(1 Corinthians 15:3-4). The Lord Jesus Christ said the law; the prophets and the Psalms are God's words and are to be believed. When Jesus wanted to prove that He was indeed the Saviour of the world, that He was indeed the Son of God, that He was indeed God manifest in the flesh come to seek and save lost and fallen mankind. He simply had to appeal to the written word of God.
Beloved, if you want to know Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour, the Bible says of itself. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God (1 John 5:13). God has given us His word that we might know Him, whom to know is life eternal.
3. Jesus stated with emphasis that all things predicted in the scriptures would be fulfilled. Let us read Matthew 5:17-18: Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled,
God is sinless. God is holy. God is true and righteous altogether. God came to this earth. He was manifest in a body of flesh. It does not take an intelligent man, it just takes an honest man, to recognize that if the law and the prophets and the Psalms of the scriptures were not true, the Lord Jesus Christ would certainly not have set His seal of approval upon them. The priesthood had grown corrupt. Jesus condemned it. The chosen people had gone astray. Jesus pointed out their errors. The teachers of the law had led men astray. Jesus enunciated their evils. Surely, had the scriptures been tainted or corrupted by men the Lord would have told us. Rather, He said that heaven and earth will pass away before one jot or one tittle of God's word would pass away. Surely, if the written scriptures were not right the Lord Jesus Christ would not have promised to preserve them when the heavens and the earth were no more. No, the Lord Jesus Christ found the word of God to be just exactly what it was supposed to be. He found it to say just exactly what it was supposed to say. You would do well to believe the word of God.
5
4. Jesus in turn declared new prophecies. The outstanding one has been strikingly fulfilled. Consider Mark 13:1-2: And as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto him, Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here! And Jesus answering said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. He went on to declare that He would go to Jerusalem, be betrayed into the hands of the chief priests and they would put Him to death. He testified that He would suffer, bleed, and die the cruel, torturous death of a Roman cross. He testified that His body would be laid in the tomb for three days and three nights, while He would be in the heart of the earth. He testified that He would indeed rise from the dead, and ascend to the right hand of the throne of His Father in heaven.
All of this He fulfilled to the letter. He declared that He would indeed save from sin every man and every woman that would come to Him and believe on Him. This He does each and every day. He said that He would come again and, my friends, just as surely as the Old Testament scriptures were fulfilled and God was manifest in the flesh and came to this earth the first time. He will come again as He has said.
Just as surely as God sent His Son into the world to die to pay for sin. He will save you and forgive you of your sins if you will call upon Him.
5. Some have thought that during Jesus' earthly life He was limited in knowledge, and therefore His testimony was of little value. But His most striking endorsement of the scriptures being the word of God came after His resurrection, and there certainly can be no argument that He had infinite knowledge in His triumphant state. In His infinite knowledge, He said (as we have read previously in Luke 24) that the Old Testament scriptures were true. He explained and expounded to His disciples the things concerning Himself from those scriptures. The deity of Jesus Christ, that is, the truth that God was manifest in the flesh in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the fact that the Bible is the word of God stand or fall together.
Jesus Christ endorsed the scriptures; if He was God in the flesh that settles the authority of scripture. If God came to earth and declared that the written scriptures were His words, then how dare we believe mortals who would teach otherwise!
We cannot accept a PART of the Bible as the word of God and reject any other part of the Bible. It is all the word of God or none of it is the word of God. It is so interwoven, one part endorsing the other and vice versa, that it proves a complete whole and cannot be broken. We are solemnly warned against adding to or taking from the scriptures. God has placed this warning in the beginning of His Book of Prophecy Deut 4:2 Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you. Deut 12:32
32 What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it. In the middle of His Book of Prophecy: Proverbs 30:6 Add
6
thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar. Listen closely to the last thing that God the Father ever spoke to man: For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
(Revelation 22:18-19).
Dear reader that is how highly God esteems His word. He has magnified His word above His very name (Psalms 138:2). He has exalted His word to the place of preeminence in the world today. My friend, you cannot believe God and not believe His word, and you cannot believe His word without believing on Jesus Christ, for this is the record that God has given unto us of His Son.
God asks you to trust Him. He is worthy of trust. God asks you to believe Him, and He has never done anything that would cause anyone to lose faith and confidence in Him. Oh, the God of the Bible is true and the Bible of God is true. God has given you His word. He has told you in His word that you are a sinner and yet. He loves you. He declares that you have transgressed His holiness, His standard, which is absolute sinless perfection, and yet, He is gracious and merciful. God wants you to dwell in perfect, glorious harmony with Him in heaven. He wants you to enjoy your life now, and to have everlasting eternal life beyond the grave. God knew that because of sin, because of your weakness, your frailty, and sinfulness that you could not ever get to heaven. No sin can enter that blessed place. No weakness, no iniquity, no transgression of any kind can enter heaven. So, God took upon Himself the form of a man to bear your sin in His body on the cross. He suffered, bled, died, and rose again. He offers you eternal, everlasting life if you will but believe on Him.
If you will only trust Him as your personal Lord and Saviour, He will forgive your sins and give you everlasting life. My friend, that gift cannot be purchased. You cannot buy it. You cannot pay for it. You cannot earn it. You cannot deserve it. It is a gift from a gracious, loving, and merciful God. He wants to give you everlasting life.
Would you humble yourself and come to Him and receive His great gift? Just be honest with God; talk to Him like you would anyone from whom you wanted so great a gift, and remember He is your God. He is your Creator. If you will come in humble reverence, in sincere believing faith, and trust the Lord Jesus Christ, as your personal Saviour He will, indeed, wash all your sins away.
An Outreach of Highway Evangelistic Ministries
5311 Windridge lane ~ Lockhart, Florida 32810 ~ USA
© Copyright kjbscc 2004 Lesson 11A The Word of GOD 07/22/2005 10:56 AM
1
THE WORD OF GOD
Lesson 11A
The Old and New Testaments stand and fall together as the word of God. The New Testament quotes frequently from the Old Testament as the word of God, while the Old Testament foretells many of the events recorded in the New Testament. Thus, if we succeed in proving that the Old Testament is the word of God, our task is complete.
Jesus and the apostles had, and read, and used the Old Testament just as we have it now. Jesus' testimony regarding the scriptures is of the greatest importance, especially His testimony AFTER His resurrection, which we will consider in this chapter.
1. Jesus Christ the Lord quoted freely from the Bible as the word of God and from those very books that have been most questioned. I'll give several examples of this.
First of all, in John 3 Jesus is speaking to a religious leader by the name of Nicodemus, a man of the Pharisees who had come by night to question Him. In verses 14 and 15 Jesus says to him, And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
In the book of Numbers, which has been attacked by scholars and critics of the Bible who claim that it is not true, we have the record of the time the children of Israel wandered through the wilderness on their way to the promised land. Because of their sin and rebellion God sent fiery serpents among them that bit many of the people. As a result, multitudes of people were dropping dead in the desert.
God spoke to Moses and told him to take a brazen serpent (a serpent of brass) and put it upon a pole and lift the pole high in the air so that those bitten could see it. Whosoever would look upon that serpent would live. They were saved when they believed God enough to obey His instructions.
In John 3, the Lord Jesus Christ teaches us that that serpent on the pole was a picture of Himself. He would die on the cross for all men so that anyone who would look to Him by faith, though he had been bitten by the stinging serpent of sin, could still live.
Not only does the Lord Jesus Christ teach this, but by so doing He testifies to the fact that the Old Testament book of Numbers is the truth. According to Jesus it is, indeed, the word of God.
In Matthew 22:30-32 we read, For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
2
There are those who did not believe in a literal, physical, bodily resurrection. The Lord Jesus Christ told them that they were wrong. He said that there would, indeed, be a physical, literal, bodily resurrection - not a reincarnation, and not a transcendency into the spirit world, but that the literal body would actually rise from the dead to face God at the judgment. Not only did the Lord Jesus Christ state this and prove it by appealing to the Old Testament scriptures, but in so doing He testified to the truth of the book of Exodus. Throughout all the centuries of Christianity scholars and critics have attacked the second book of the Bible. In the book of Exodus we read of the Passover Lamb and its blood being shed as a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ dying for our salvation (1 Corinthians 5:7). We read of the children of Israel passing through the Red Sea, a picture of our baptism
(1 Corinthians 10:1-4). We read in the book of Exodus of God giving His laws, rules and commandments to man. Therefore, when the critics and skeptics attack the book of Exodus they are undermining faith in the great truths it contains. But, my friend, the Lord Jesus Christ, by quoting from Exodus, testified to the fact that it is, and was, and always shall be, the pure and perfect word of God. If you trust Jesus you must trust the book of Exodus.
In Matthew 19, Jesus is once again dealing with the Pharisees. Look carefully at verses 3 and 4: The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him. Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female. Here the Lord Jesus Christ not only testifies that evolution is a lie, but, as the Creator of man. He testifies that the book of Genesis is true.
Genesis is the most frequently attacked and maligned book in the Bible, but not by Jesus. According to the Lord, Genesis is indeed the pure and perfect word of God and is to be trusted, INCLUDING the very earliest chapters which detail and record God's creation of the heavens and the earth and all that in them is.
You see, our world today is filled with religious people who hate God. Our churches and seminaries are filled with religious educators, teachers, preachers, ministers, prophets, priests, and evangelists who would call God a liar as quick as they would call their mama "Mother." Beloved, these people attack the book of Genesis. They say it's a lie. They call it a myth. They regard it a moral fairy tale. It is accused of being an invention of Moses or some other man.
But the Lord Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, said the book of Genesis was true. He held it to be right and rebuked the religious leaders of his day for not having read and believed it. He went on in Matthew 19:8 to say. He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. The Lord Jesus Christ testified to the truth of the book of Genesis. In Matthew 12, here they come again. (Beware of men who always want to argue and debate.) Look at verses 38-41: Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master,
3
we would see a sign from thee. But he answered and said unto them. An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.
I know what infidels tell you! They say there is no way a whale could have swallowed Jonah. They tell you there is no way that the book of Jonah can be anything but a story, a myth or a fairy tale.
"Impossible," says the wayward son of Adam. But, my friend, the things, which are impossible with man, are possible with God. The book of Jonah teaches that a GREAT fish that God had specially prepared for the very purpose of ingesting a disobedient prophet swallowed Jonah. The Lord Jesus Christ said it was a whale. Now, I don't know who has told you that the book of Jonah is a myth or a lie or a fairy tale, but I am telling you that the Lord Jesus Christ believed the book of Jonah.
Apart from Genesis, no portion of the Bible has been abused like the book of Daniel. Yet, notice the certainty with which Jesus stands upon its very words in Matthew 24:15-16: When ye therefore shall ye the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains. In the coming great tribulation men's very lives will depend upon believing the book of Daniel - according to the Lord.
So, to repeat point number one: Jesus quoted freely from the Bible as the word of God and from those very books that have been most questioned.
2. Jesus predicated His own claims of being the Messiah on the prophecies of Old Testament scripture. In Luke 24 the Lord Jesus Christ was walking along the road to Emmaus with two disciples. These disciples were very sad. Jesus asked them why they were so sad and they told Him that the One they had hoped was their Messiah had been crucified. They said that there had been those who had gone to the sepulcher early that morning and found the tomb empty, and the body of Jesus gone. They told Him they were upset about not knowing what had become of the body. Look at the Lord's response in verses 25-27: Then he said unto them, 0 fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
According to the Bible, Moses (that's the first five books of the Bible - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) and ALL the prophets (everything from Joshua through Malachi in your Old Testament) were speaking, writing, and testifying of Jesus Christ.
4
In verse 44 we read. And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. According to Jesus, the Law of Moses, the Psalms, and the prophetic writings were all the inspired word of God testifying of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. In verses 45 and 46 we read. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures. And said unto them. Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day.
This is the gospel message - Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, was buried and the third day Jesus rose again according to the scriptures
(1 Corinthians 15:3-4). The Lord Jesus Christ said the law; the prophets and the Psalms are God's words and are to be believed. When Jesus wanted to prove that He was indeed the Saviour of the world, that He was indeed the Son of God, that He was indeed God manifest in the flesh come to seek and save lost and fallen mankind. He simply had to appeal to the written word of God.
Beloved, if you want to know Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour, the Bible says of itself. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God (1 John 5:13). God has given us His word that we might know Him, whom to know is life eternal.
3. Jesus stated with emphasis that all things predicted in the scriptures would be fulfilled. Let us read Matthew 5:17-18: Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled,
God is sinless. God is holy. God is true and righteous altogether. God came to this earth. He was manifest in a body of flesh. It does not take an intelligent man, it just takes an honest man, to recognize that if the law and the prophets and the Psalms of the scriptures were not true, the Lord Jesus Christ would certainly not have set His seal of approval upon them. The priesthood had grown corrupt. Jesus condemned it. The chosen people had gone astray. Jesus pointed out their errors. The teachers of the law had led men astray. Jesus enunciated their evils. Surely, had the scriptures been tainted or corrupted by men the Lord would have told us. Rather, He said that heaven and earth will pass away before one jot or one tittle of God's word would pass away. Surely, if the written scriptures were not right the Lord Jesus Christ would not have promised to preserve them when the heavens and the earth were no more. No, the Lord Jesus Christ found the word of God to be just exactly what it was supposed to be. He found it to say just exactly what it was supposed to say. You would do well to believe the word of God.
5
4. Jesus in turn declared new prophecies. The outstanding one has been strikingly fulfilled. Consider Mark 13:1-2: And as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto him, Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here! And Jesus answering said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. He went on to declare that He would go to Jerusalem, be betrayed into the hands of the chief priests and they would put Him to death. He testified that He would suffer, bleed, and die the cruel, torturous death of a Roman cross. He testified that His body would be laid in the tomb for three days and three nights, while He would be in the heart of the earth. He testified that He would indeed rise from the dead, and ascend to the right hand of the throne of His Father in heaven.
All of this He fulfilled to the letter. He declared that He would indeed save from sin every man and every woman that would come to Him and believe on Him. This He does each and every day. He said that He would come again and, my friends, just as surely as the Old Testament scriptures were fulfilled and God was manifest in the flesh and came to this earth the first time. He will come again as He has said.
Just as surely as God sent His Son into the world to die to pay for sin. He will save you and forgive you of your sins if you will call upon Him.
5. Some have thought that during Jesus' earthly life He was limited in knowledge, and therefore His testimony was of little value. But His most striking endorsement of the scriptures being the word of God came after His resurrection, and there certainly can be no argument that He had infinite knowledge in His triumphant state. In His infinite knowledge, He said (as we have read previously in Luke 24) that the Old Testament scriptures were true. He explained and expounded to His disciples the things concerning Himself from those scriptures. The deity of Jesus Christ, that is, the truth that God was manifest in the flesh in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the fact that the Bible is the word of God stand or fall together.
Jesus Christ endorsed the scriptures; if He was God in the flesh that settles the authority of scripture. If God came to earth and declared that the written scriptures were His words, then how dare we believe mortals who would teach otherwise!
We cannot accept a PART of the Bible as the word of God and reject any other part of the Bible. It is all the word of God or none of it is the word of God. It is so interwoven, one part endorsing the other and vice versa, that it proves a complete whole and cannot be broken. We are solemnly warned against adding to or taking from the scriptures. God has placed this warning in the beginning of His Book of Prophecy Deut 4:2 Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you. Deut 12:32
32 What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it. In the middle of His Book of Prophecy: Proverbs 30:6 Add
6
thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar. Listen closely to the last thing that God the Father ever spoke to man: For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
(Revelation 22:18-19).
Dear reader that is how highly God esteems His word. He has magnified His word above His very name (Psalms 138:2). He has exalted His word to the place of preeminence in the world today. My friend, you cannot believe God and not believe His word, and you cannot believe His word without believing on Jesus Christ, for this is the record that God has given unto us of His Son.
God asks you to trust Him. He is worthy of trust. God asks you to believe Him, and He has never done anything that would cause anyone to lose faith and confidence in Him. Oh, the God of the Bible is true and the Bible of God is true. God has given you His word. He has told you in His word that you are a sinner and yet. He loves you. He declares that you have transgressed His holiness, His standard, which is absolute sinless perfection, and yet, He is gracious and merciful. God wants you to dwell in perfect, glorious harmony with Him in heaven. He wants you to enjoy your life now, and to have everlasting eternal life beyond the grave. God knew that because of sin, because of your weakness, your frailty, and sinfulness that you could not ever get to heaven. No sin can enter that blessed place. No weakness, no iniquity, no transgression of any kind can enter heaven. So, God took upon Himself the form of a man to bear your sin in His body on the cross. He suffered, bled, died, and rose again. He offers you eternal, everlasting life if you will but believe on Him.
If you will only trust Him as your personal Lord and Saviour, He will forgive your sins and give you everlasting life. My friend, that gift cannot be purchased. You cannot buy it. You cannot pay for it. You cannot earn it. You cannot deserve it. It is a gift from a gracious, loving, and merciful God. He wants to give you everlasting life.
Would you humble yourself and come to Him and receive His great gift? Just be honest with God; talk to Him like you would anyone from whom you wanted so great a gift, and remember He is your God. He is your Creator. If you will come in humble reverence, in sincere believing faith, and trust the Lord Jesus Christ, as your personal Saviour He will, indeed, wash all your sins away.