Internal evidence that it is reasonable to believe the Bible.

• Remember that the point is that the Bible claims to be inspired (2 Sam. 23:1-2; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; 2 Pet. 1:21).• If the Bible is inspired, then it is

reasonable to believe it.

• If it is not inspired, then it is not even worthy to be read, because it is a huge lie.

• Following is a number of things that support the Bible’s claim to inspiration.

The Bible account of the creation is unique in ancient history.

• There is simply nothing else to compare with it.• Scholars will often cite the Babylonian

account of the creation as comparable to Genesis 1.• Though there are some vague

similarities, the differences are vastly greater than the similarities.

The Enuma Elish.

• The copies we have of this story date back to the 7th century B.C., for the library of Ashurbanipal.

• Older copies have been found dating back to 1000 B.C.

• “In all probability the Babylonian epic is in turn based upon Sumerian stories of creation that are even earlier.”

Points of comparison.

• In comparing this account with the Genesis account, there is no personification of God as salt water or fresh water.

• God is a living person who speaks and His will is done.

• Whereas the Babylonian gods met and, in drunken stupor, selected Marduk as their chief, the very idea of Jehovah getting drunk is unthinkable and blasphemous.• In the Babylonian account, the

gods are married and have offspring.• Jehovah is eternal and has no

consort.

• The Babylonians clearly made their gods in their own image.

• Their gods needed man.

• Jehovah is portrayed consistently as the Creator and Sustainer of man (Acts 17:25; Ps. 50:12-13).

• In the Babylonian account of the flood, the Gilgamesh Epic, the gods are shown to be so dependent upon the sacrifices of men that when the first sacrifices were offered after the flood, the gods swarmed like flies over the sacrifices.

• In the Genesis account God is never confused with nature but is always above nature.

• The real puzzle, though, is how do we explain this story in Genesis? Where did the Hebrews come up with such an account?

• It is vastly superior to any other account and also radically different from most other accounts.

• “It is clearly a wondrous miracle that out of such an environment as the Enuma Elish reveals, the Hebrews could arrive at such an exalted idea of God and man. If they borrowed from the Babylonians, the finished product far exceeded the raw materials. The Hebrew faith never suffers by comparison with contemporary thought. Inferior in culture they were, yet in religion they drank from a fountain of knowledge unknown to cultures far more advanced” (Charles Pfeiffer, Biblical World, p. 229).

• Sociologists say that man’s religion is merely a product of his environment.

• This is usually true.

• But this principle raises a paradox with reference to the Bible.

• Here is a book written mostly by Israelites.

• They were culturally inferior to the Babylonians, the Egyptians, and the Canaanites.

• Yet the concepts of God presented in the Bible are as high above those of their contemporaries as the heavens are above the earth.

• The entire world was given over to idol worship, yet idolatry is severely condemned in the entire Bible.

• The Israelites themselves were plagued by idolatry throughout their existence until the captivity.

• How then could they, and why then would they write a book which scathingly condemns their own practice?

• The first two of the ten commandments are: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”• And “Thou shalt not make unto

thee any graven image, nor any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth?” (Exod. 20:3-4).

• When Moses preached to Israel in the plains of Moab, he said, “And Jehovah spoke unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of words, but ye saw no form . . . . Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of form on the day that Jehovah spoke unto you in Horeb out of the fire; lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image in the form of any figure” (Deut. 4:12, 15-19).

• Again, Moses said, “Thou shalt fear Jehovah thy God; and Him shalt thou serve, and shalt swear by his name. Thou shalt not go after other gods, of the gods of the peoples that are round about you” (Deut. 6:13-14).

• Only divine inspiration is capable of explaining a feat totally without parallel, a product so totally at variance with the environment, culture, and religious inclinations of the society from whence it came.

Prophecy:

• The Bible is a book of prophecy.

• Isaiah challenges the gods of the world:

(Isa. 41:22-24).

• “Let them bring them forth, and declare unto us what shall happen: declare ye the former things, what they are, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or show us the things to come. Declare the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together. Behold, ye are nothing, and your work is nought; an abomination is he that chooseth you.”

• Upon their ability to foretell, the prophet was willing to rest his case as Moses also taught (Deut. 18:21-22).

• There are just a few prophecies I want to call your attention to that clearly and unmistakably indicate the hand of God.

Ps. 110:4• Jehovah hath sworn, and will not

repent: thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”• Melchizedek was not a Jew and certainly

not of the family of Aaron.• No one could be a priest under the law

of Moses unless he was of the family of Aaron. (2 Chron. 13:9-12; 2 Chron. 26:16-21; Mal. 2:4-5).

• With this point so carefully established, why would David prophesy of a priest after the order of Melchizedek?

• Such a one surely could not be a priest under the law of Moses.

• Surely it could only have been inspiration that could guide David to prophesy the priesthood of Melchizedek which would require a change of the law of Moses.

Zech 6:12-13

• “Behold, the man whose name is the Branch: and he shall grow up out of his place; and he shall build the temple of Jehovah; even He shall build the temple of Jehovah; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon His throne; and He shall be a priest upon his throne; and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.”

• The basic point is that upon this throne there be both a king and a priest.

• Joshua, the high priest in Zechariah’s day is used in Zechariah 3 to represent the servant of God, the Branch.

• Yet in chapter 6:11 a crown is placed upon Joshua’s head.

• Joshua was used to symbolize the priest/king called the Branch.

• But the Branch is identified as a descendant of David (Jer. 23:5).

• But David was of the tribe of Judah.

• Now how could anyone combine the function of priest/king over God’s people, because men from Judah could not be priests, and men from Levi could not be king?

• This puzzle is inexplicable without the Christ, and how could Zechariah have known this without inspiration?

Jeremiah 31:31-34• Behold, the days come, saith the Lord,

that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them forth out of the land of Egypt . . . .”

• This is an unmistakably clear promise on the part of God to replace the covenant involving the law of Moses with a completely different covenant, a new covenant.

• Jeremiah was a priest, yet he predicted a new covenant which meant that the law of Moses, under which he was a priest, would be done away.

• There are the remarkable prophecies of Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 concerning the Christ.

• There are the prophecies regarding the future of Tyre (Ezek. 26-28), Babylon (Isa. 13:20), Egypt (Ezek. 29), and the Jewish people.

• There is the intriguing promise of Gen. 3:15 and the promise to Abraham that through his seed all nations would be blessed (Gen. 22:18).• But the power of the prophecies we

have looked at is that there is no way such prophecies would ever have originated by natural processes.