Is the Bible Truly God s Word? Part 2

Transcription

1 1 Is the Bible Truly God s Word? Part 2 A Presuppositional Answer WHAT IS THE PROOF THAT THE BIBLE IS GOD S WORD? Something that we must do when proving the authority of Scripture is appeal to the reason that the Bible is the Word of God, not the results. Let me explain. Here is the question we must ask to determine the strength of the proofs we are using to defend the authority of the Bible: Is this proof the reason that the Bible is God s Word, or is it simply the result of it being God s Word? In other words, Is the Bible God s Word because this statement is true or is this statement true because the Bible is God s Word? For example: There is much archeological evidence that supports the idea that the Bible is true and valid. The Bible is being constantly supported by current discoveries in archeology. However, is the Bible God s Word because current discoveries in archeology support it or do current discoveries in archeology support the Bible because it is God s Word? In other words is the reason the Bible is the Word of God that current discoveries in archeology support it? NO. The support of current archeological discoveries is merely the result of the Bible being the Word of God. On the other hand, what if we simply assume the authority of Scripture and work out our thinking from there? What if we simply say that the Bible is the Word of God because He inspired it and authored it through the writing of human beings? That s the reason that it is God s Word. What if we simply begin there? and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:15-17 ESV) For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. This is the reason the Bible is God s Word, and so it is completely conclusive proof. (2 Peter 1:21 ESV) I know what you re thinking. This is ridiculous. No one will listen to me if I say the reason the Bible is the Word of God is because God inspired it and actually wrote it through human beings! If I rest my argument there, I will completely ignored! But I am not saying that we end our argument there; simply that we begin our argument there. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. But we don t stop there. If we do, then it is simply the Bible s Word against the claims of other writings, right? How do we know that the Bible is superior over all other religious writings? We do what I said earlier that we do: We look at each one and compare them to one another. What we will find is that the Bible alone is completely consistent with itself and that the Bible alone makes complete sense of why things are the way they are. Just in case I ve lost anyone, let me just show you the approach I am proposing by relating it to the mathematical equation When someone asks me, What is 2 + 2? I say 4. But if that same person were to ask me, How do you know that? I would not then appeal to all the brilliant mathematicians and educational institutions over the centuries that have held to the idea that = 4. That doesn t prove anything. It shows that is probably 4, but it does not prove that actually equals 4. Instead, I would instead simply work out the problem in front of them.

2 2 When it comes down to it, what I am trying to get us to think about is our ultimate authority. Are we going to defend spiritual truth by relying on God and what He has revealed in Scripture, or are we going to depend on the methods and the mindset proposed by the unbeliever who does not acknowledge God nor give thanks to Him as Paul says in Romans? Who is our ultimate authority? If it is God and His revelation, why do we need another authority (like the evidence or anything else) to prove it? When it comes down to it, all of us assume the authority of something or someone. Either we assume the authority of the Bible when it comes to demonstrating its authority and reliability or we assume the authority of a person (whether ourselves or the unbelievers we are trying to convince) who say that the Bible is not enough. I do realize though that some of you if not many of you have come to the faith through a defense of the faith that was rooted in the evidence, and so you are likely sympathetic and possibly very committed to relying on the evidence to defend the faith. I realize that this type of discussion can be quite tender and sensitive, so all I really want to say is this: Though I praise God for opening the eyes of your hearts and am thrilled to know that He can use anything He so desires to convert the soul, I would still want to say that the result does not validate the method. Just because God uses a particular method for His glory, does not mean that He prefers that method over another. It simply means that He is good and powerful and strong to save. But we need to be extremely careful before we base what we believe to be true on our own experiences. Whatever approach we take to defending the Bible s authority and reliability, it needs to be because we are convinced from Scripture that it is the right approach to take, not because it has worked for us in the past. Answering the question of the Bible s reliability and authority ought to be much like what we do to answer the question, What is 2 + 2? We start by giving the answer. (The Bible is the Word of God because God inspired it and ultimately authored it through the human writers.) Then if anyone questions the answer, we demonstrate the truth of our answer right in front of their eyes. So, how do we demonstrate that truth? How do we work this problem out for ourselves and for others, in a way that is conclusive? Here is where I start. THE BIBLE/CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW IS TRUE AND RELIABLE BECAUSE NO OTHER WORLDVIEW CAN MAKE COMPLETE SENSE OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE. 1 There are really 3 primary areas of religious thought. Being (Metaphysics) How and why we exist. The basic philosophical question is that something is there, rather than nothing is there. (Satre) How did this something (everything that exists) get there? Why is it here? How does it exist in its present form? Knowing (Epistemology) How we can know anything in the first place? How is knowledge achieved? Morals (Ethics) How we distinguish between right and wrong? What is the basis for morals? The point I will try to make here is that the Bible/the Christian Worldview is the only worldview that has complete answers and complete explanations for all 3 areas of thought! At some point, every other worldview will contradict itself and will come up short in its explanation of at least 1 of the 3 major areas of thought. So our approach when defending the authority of the Bible should be two-fold. First, we must show the inconsistencies and the incompleteness of the unbelieving worldview (whatever it may be). We need to show why the worldview of the unbeliever will not work and is not consistent and does not provide complete answers to adequately understanding the world as it is. Then, the second thing we need to do is show how the Christian 1 This argument is called the impossibility of the contrary. In other words, Christianity must be true because if it were not, we would not be able to prove anything at all. If God does not exist, in 3 Persons, create man in His own image, and reveal Himself to man; and provide a way for man to accept these truths despite his blindness from sin; then we would not exist, and so we could not think about these questions (let alone know anything about them).

3 3 worldview or the Bible is superior to the unbelieving worldview. We cannot leave the unbeliever understanding that his worldview simply will not cut it; we need to also show him/her which worldview will and does. So, before we move on, what I d like to do is try to zero in on the major weaknesses of the biggest threat and biggest affront to the biblical worldview in our country especially, and that is, pure secularism; trying to deal with these 3 areas of thought in a worldview that does not begin with the God of the Bible; exalting the greatness of man and saying that he has the ability by himself to find out and understand the truth, with no help from God. We see this attitude everywhere we turn it seems; in atheism (the idea that God does not exist), naturalism (the rejection of the supernatural), agnosticism (the idea that supernatural truth is by nature unknowable), relativism (the rejection of absolute truths), and in humanism (exalting the importance of humans above everything else, including the importance of God if God exists for the humanist, he is supremely interested in man). We see the secular worldview everywhere, which not only challenges the foundational truths and assumptions of the Bible, but in its rejection of the Bible s absolute authority also gives credence and weight to other opposing worldviews. This is why I want to do my best to show the major weaknesses in this type of worldview (which is found in all different types of views it itself is not a worldview simply the general characteristic of many different worldviews) Before I do this however, I want to say, the things I am going to bring up about this type of worldview are not causes to treat unbelievers badly. Unbelieving worldviews have many problems, which I do not want to ignore in a discussion like this. But we cannot treat unbelievers as our enemies. I am saddened deeply when I see debates and discussions on the web or on television or discussions or sermons in churches where unbelievers are disrespected and outcasted by professing Christians. But remember, they like you and me are made in the image of God and should be respected and even honored as such. The only thing that sets the Christian and the non- Christian apart is God s work in the life of the Christian. We have been saved by grace, not because we are better or smarter or cuter or funnier or cleaner than anyone else. That should revolutionize our attitude toward all unbelievers. Let your speech be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer each one. (Colossians 4:6) Unbelievers are not our enemies, and we should not use our arguments against their worldviews to treat them as such. So, when I attempt to pick apart the worldview of the secularist (the one who begins with anything other than God in his worldview), I am not attacking them as people; but am simply trying to deal with their arguments and their presuppositions, in hopes that it will be effective to steer some away from the hopelessness and the foolishness of these kind of ideas, and in hopes that it will be effective to help some of us interact with them on a level that they will appreciate and by God s grace respond to. THE PROBLEMS of SECULARISM: 1. The Metaphysical Problems of Secularism: The problems of the secularist in the study of being/existence. As I said earlier, everyone begins their worldview with an assumption. Everyone begins with something. The secularist begins with something, whether it be mass or energy particles or something else, which cannot be proven or verified. There are a lot of secular ideas floating around in our world for how things came into being, but when you push them to the very beginning (to the beginning of all things that exist), they are forced to simply assume something that is not verified (if they are to be honest), and to assume it based solely on their own personal authority. But no one who begins with anything other than God that I know was actually in existence at the very beginning to be able to say with complete, objective, and authoritative certainty that they know that they know that they know what actually existed first, so they have no real authority to make their assumptions to begin with. So, even those who claim to rest everything they know strictly on the facts and the scientific method, are forced to begin their system with an assumption; that no matter what, either God does not exist, or at least that

4 4 God is not involved in the world today and is not needed to understand the world. That is huge assumption, and it directly contradicts them when they say they are simply trying to be neutral and objective. They are beginning with the assumption that God is not needed for everyday life (whether he does or does not exist). They are beginning with an assumption about God, which they cannot even verify themselves. The secularist is not able to be consistent in his explanation for how and why we exist, because though he says that in order to accept anything as true it must be tested scientifically first, he cannot begin his own system with that method. As intelligent and as logical and as rational as so many secularists appear to be, they still must begin their system with an assumption (or to be more clear an opinion), with which they have to base their entire system off of. So, their system proves to be unreliable before it even begins. If the scientific method is the pathway to all knowledge, then to be consistent the secularist would have to apply that same method to his starting point (that God either does not exist, or that He is not necessary to understanding the world or living in it), which cannot be done. If there is no God, then there is literally no way to know how things began and how we got here and why we are here, which makes it impossible for the secularist to say with any kind of certainty that there is no God or at the very least that He is not needed for everyday life, so the secularist cannot even prove his starting point with his own method. To begin his system he has to abandon his own method for knowing what he knows, and simply assume what he does not know; that God is not the starting point for understanding reality; and, that the scientific method is the pathway to knowing all truth. How does he know either of those things? On what authority does he know that those 2 statements are true? Aside from the fact that the 2 ideas directly contradict each other; there is literally no way for the secularist to know with any kind of certainty that they are true in the first place. This is a major problem for this type of worldview. 2. The Epistemological Problems of Secularism: The problems of the secularist in the study of knowing. To answer the question of knowing ( How can we know anything to begin with? ), the secularist continues to run into significant problems. Let me put it this way. If there is no personal being (God) to reveal truth to us (which by the way, is how our world functions every single day by the communication of information) we as completely limited and completely finite beings are left to gather facts in order to understand or to know anything at all. But we have a hard enough time comprehending by ourselves things like how cars work, or how the human brain works, or how light can exist outside of time it seems. What makes us think that apart from someone giving us the right information that we could ever answer the most important questions in the universe, simply from gathering facts? We have a hard enough time doing the little peg game at Cracker Barrel or understanding the game of chess. What makes anyone think that apart from revealed truth, we could ever know anything about the most important topics in the world with any kind of certainty? Again, the secularist is forced to begin with assumptions (not facts) in order for their system to work. In other words, they need knowledge in the first place, so that they could know anything about how we know what we know at all. If the secularist says that reason leads to knowledge he/she runs into a brick wall because knowledge is needed to begin reasoning in the first place and without knowledge reason is incomplete. But if reason is incomplete without knowledge then how could we use reason completely to get the knowledge that we are seeking? If the secularist says that experience then, leads to knowledge he/she runs out of gas very quickly because people experience the world differently and so will interpret their experiences differently, not to mention that we are in need of knowledge in order to interpret our experiences in the first place. Knowledge must come from an outside source, which some secularists (some philosophers) will even admit. The problem is, they have no one in their system to give that initial knowledge. So, some secularists (many in our culture) will simply say that we cannot know anything with certainty at all when it comes to spiritual truth. The problem though is that they cannot apply that fact (if it is a fact) to their assumption that there is no God. But either we cannot know anything (including whether or not God exists) or we

5 5 can know something (that God does or does not exist), but we cannot know nothing and know something at the same time. Furthermore, saying that we cannot know anything at all is a self-refuting statement (that is, it contradicts itself). The big and inescapable problem with this type of thinking (agnosticism, relativism) is an epistemological problem (the study of knowing). So let s all open our eyes as wide as we can to see how this statement contradicts itself. If we could not know anything about spiritual truth with certainty, then we could not even know that. It is a contradiction to say, We cannot know anything with certainty and then to say, but we can know this. Either we can know or we cannot know. But if we cannot know then we cannot know even that we cannot know. This is not only self-refuting, it is absolutely absurd! My point here is simply to say, that in this area of knowing, the secularist contradicts himself from many different angles. And what we need to know is that if God did not exist and did not reveal Himself and give us that outside source of knowledge to begin reasoning and interpreting our experience, then the atheist would have no grounds to argue against Him. God must exist and must impart knowledge for the atheist to even begin to know anything about what he knows or does not know. He not only contradicts himself, he is reliant upon the existence of God to do even that! 3. The Ethical Problems of Secularism: The problems of the secularist in the study of morals. Last week I was introduced to the Rational Response Squad, an atheist group that thrives on seeing people (specifically teenagers) renouncing Christianity and even mocking it as being foolishness. I decided to try to wade through some of the waters of their blogs on their website, where they discussed different issues related to their atheism, and one of these discussions I found particularly interesting. They were discussing morality, and objecting to the idea that Christians bring up, that without God there is no ground for morals. They were objecting to that idea by appealing to their own lives, saying things like, God is not needed for morals. Just look at me. I am an atheist and live a very moral life. I love my family. I love my wife/husband. I love my kids. I m a good citizen. I pay my taxes. I haven t killed anyone. I ve not committed adultery. And yet I am an atheist. Obviously you do not need God to be moral. This at first might appear to disprove the argument that without God, all would lead to anarchy and chaos. But that is really not the issue. The question we need to press the secularist with is, Why do you do those things? Why do you live a moral life? It is obvious that you have a set of morals, but why do you have it and where do you get it from and how do you know that it is reliable and correct? At this point they will probably say that they are their own standard for morals. What you think is right is right for you, and what I think is right is right for me. They do what they do, simply because they have decided that it is the right thing to do. But what about people who disagree? What about a person who has a different set of morals? What about Hitler or Stalin? What about Sadaam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden? Is their set of morals wrong? Was the Holocaust wrong? Is child slavery wrong? Is slavery wrong? Is murder wrong? Is our president doing things wrong? Is it wrong to preach against homosexuality or abortion? Is religious hypocrisy wrong? Who decides? On what basis can the secularist authoritatively say that anything is actually wrong? He has no basis but himself. But how does he know that he is right? If he sticks to his guns, he cannot know at all. But I have not met an secularist who did not think that something in the world was wrong. This itself contradicts the foundation of secularism. It is not to say that secularists do not have a set of morals, or that they do not call certain things right and certain things wrong; it is that they cannot do it based on their own system. They have to make an exception in order to call anything right and anything wrong. Secularism does not lead to morals. Secularists have morals, but secularism does not and cannot give those morals to them. We should also note that this is not only philosophically impossible (its not only illogical and self-refuting 2 ideas cannot be completely contradictory and still both be right), it is practically impossible. No secularist lives;

6 6 no person on this planet lives, without some kind of set of right and wrong. To truly live as if man makes up what is right and what is wrong, would be to fall completely apathetic and unconcerned to what any other person on the planet does with their life in any given situation, including those who would preach against secularism. If what the secularist says is true (that morals are decided upon by each person), then why do they seem to get so upset with those who think differently? The minute the secularist labels anything as wrong or immoral or unethical is the minute that he/she begins to live according to a different system. So, secularism has its fair share of problems, though these problems go largely unexamined and unchallenged in our day. But we must make no mistake about it: The secular based worldview is inconsistent and impractical and incomplete in its answers to all 3 areas of study and thought. It cannot consistently explain how and why we exist. It cannot consistently explain how we can know anything at all. And it cannot consistently explain the basis for morals and how we distinguish between right and wrong. So again I say, that without the Christian worldview; without the God of the Bible; secularism would not be able to argue its position on morals, nor would the atheist be able to consistently practice any kind of morality, because right and wrong would not exist, knowledge would not be available to him, and he himself would not exist at all. Secularism requires the existence of God in order to prove that He does not exist. If He did not exist, the secularist could not even intelligibly argue that point. THE SUPREMACY OF THE CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW: 1. The Supremacy of the Christian Worldview in the Study of Being: The Bible alone gives a consistent and complete explanation for how we exist and why we exist the way we do. I said earlier that the secularist cannot use his own method (the scientific method dealing with the facts) to prove anything about the beginning of all things. He has to abandon his method in order to hold to his ideas about being and reality. This is a serious problem. His method cannot explain his starting point. By contrast, the Christian worldview/the Bible gives complete answers to our beginnings and is able to use its own prescribed methods to prove those beginnings. The method the Bible uses to understanding our beginnings and the nature of reality is consistent even when dealing with its starting point. Let me try to explain. The Bible does not at any point teach that the scientific method as humans have developed it over the centuries is the authoritative method for learning about our beginnings. This is not to say science is evil or bad or contrary to the faith and the truth about God, but simply that we do not uphold science (which no one uses perfectly) as the final standard for determining whether or not something is true. The Bible instead holds God s revelation as the authoritative source for knowing anything about our existence or about reality and about all things. The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the LORD swore to give your fathers. And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. (Deuteronomy 8:1-3 ESV Cf. Matthew 4:4) The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the

7 7 eyes; the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. (Psalm 19:7-9 ESV) So, the method that the Bible upholds for understanding anything is God s revelation; God s Word; now available to us in the pages of Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21). But unlike the secularist, we can use our method to prove even our starting point. And what does God say about our existence and reality? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and God said, Let there be light. and God said, Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it separate the waters from the waters. and God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear and God said, Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit tress bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth. And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth. And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens. And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds....then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. (Genesis 1:1-26 select verses ESV) But the Bible does not stop there in its superiority over any other worldview when it comes to explaining the world s existence. The Bible alone has complete answers for not only how the world exists, but how it exists the way it does. Here is one of the questions we must ask of everyone: How does the world exist as it does; with personality (we relate to one another and to the rest of the world personally), complexity, and yet with unity? The answer is that God (the Christian God alone) is personal, complex, and works in a complete unity! God is personal (he creates man in His own image and relates to Him); He is complex God exists in 3 persons (Matthew 3:16-17; 1 Peter 1:2) and yet is completely unified (Deuteronomy 6:4). I would love to expand on this, but you get the picture: The Bible not only consistently accounts for the world s existence, it accounts for the way the world exists as well. No other worldview can do these 2 things. 2. The Supremacy of the Christian Worldview in the Study of Knowing: The Bible alone gives a consistent and complete explanation for how we can know anything of spiritual significance at all. I said earlier that the secularist is not able to begin thinking about knowing until he has been given some kind of knowledge to begin reasoning and/or interpreting his experience with in the first place. This is a very clear inconsistency within that type of worldview. Where does that initial knowledge come from? If not from God then from what? If there are absolutes that we can know, then where do those absolutes come from? These are the problems for the secularist. But I should also say that other religions/philosophies that are based on what they believe to be revelation are equally plagued with problems. The way we go about showing them their problems however is similarly to show them the inconsistencies in their own book(s). The errors are there, we just have to be diligent to find them and expose them. The Christian worldview/the Bible, however, has a consistent and complete explanation for how we can know anything at all. As we said earlier, it assumes that God s revelation is the source and the beginning of all spiritual

8 8 knowledge. So, using that method (looking to Scripture) we can consistently find out how we actually attain that knowledge. Here is the Bible s explanation. God exists in 3 Persons, who have lived in fellowship and communication for all eternity. (John 17:5; Matthew 3:16-17) Jesus revealed this in His prayer to the Father in John 17. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. (John 17:4-5 ESV) We are created in God s image which gives us the ability to relate to Him. (Genesis 1:26-27) Regardless of what the image actually consists of, it tells us that we are in some way like God and can in some way relate to Him. He has not only created us, He has created us with the capacity (which today is corrupted by our sin) to comprehend Him. God has revealed Himself to us through creation; words [both spoken & written]; and has come to us as a human being in Christ. (Romans 1:18-20; John 1:1-14) In Romans Paul teaches us that God has revealed His eternal power in creation, such that we can know things about Him through creation, which we in our sin reject. And then John tells us that Jesus, the Word that was with God and was God came to us in human flesh to make the Father known. So, not only does God exist, but He created us, gave us the ability to relate to Him in some way, revealed Himself to us in distinct ways, and He has given us His Spirit to lead us into all truth. (John 14:26; 16:8, 13) has given His very Spirit to teach and to guide Christians into spiritual truth. That is a consistent and a complete answer to the question of how we know anything about spiritual matters at all. No other worldview can do these 2 things. This is a full explanation. Reason cannot lead to knowledge because we are in need of knowledge to reason in the first place. Experience cannot lead to knowledge because people experience the world in different ways and we are in need of knowledge in order to interpret our experiences in the first place. Knowledge must come from an outside source. Knowledge must come from God Himself. Atheists have no outside source to provide this knowledge. The Quran has no consistent explanation for this, because it teaches Allah to be completely different from the rest of the world, so much so that no one can understand Him, yet at the same time he apparently communicates about himself through people using words and ideas that they can fully understand (which is clearly a contradiction). JW s and Mormons cannot explain how, if the Holy Spirit is not fully God that he can fully comprehend the mind of God. Outside of the entire Bible (OT & NT), only Judaism has any kind of consistent explanation in this area: God exists, has made us in the image of God, and has revealed Himself to us. That is a fairly complete explanation for this area. However, Judaism falls quite short in the next area to consider. 3. The Supremacy of the Bible in the study of Morals The Bible alone gives a consistent and complete explanation for rightness and wrongness and what the solution is for the wrong in the world. I said earlier that the secularist has no basis for understanding right and wrong, not that the secularist cannot be live morally, but simply that his secularism cannot give him his morals. It is impossible to say that 2 different people who think completely contradictory things regarding what is right and wrong can both be right even though they completely disagree. But it is also practically impossible to live consistently this way, because the moment you say someone else is wrong; or even get angry at someone for something they have done; while still holding the idea that everyone is right, then you have fully and officially contradicted yourself. If you are going

9 9 to hold to any level of right and wrong and I might even argue even if you try to hold to a relativistic idea of right and wrong you are forced to do so according to a different system. But the Christian Worldview/the Bible gives an explanation for morals consistently and completely. God is the definition of good, is completely good, and only does good, and requires goodness of us. (Psalm 34:8; Psalm 119:68; Nahum 1:7; Micah 6:8) Good is what it is in the Christian Worldview because God is who God is. It tells us to look to God for the definition of what is good and then gives us an aswer; God is good, only does good and requires goodness of us. Anything not in line with the character and will of God is wrong (sin). (1 John 3:4) People are born with a bent toward sin (a sin nature Romans 5:12-14) and willfully reject God, but for the work of His Spirit (Romans 1:18-32; 1 Corinthians 2:10-16). This means that people are not as they originally were, which gives us the basis for saying that certain things people do are absolutely wrong. Sin must be dealt with, and will be once and for all. (Isaiah 53; 60; John 19:30; Revelation 21-22) All of this talk in the Bible about a New World and about Heaven and final salvation is the answer to the question, What then is going to become of sin? All worldviews are responsible for dealing with this question, if in fact they hold to any kind of morals which all people do. If wrong exists then what are we to do about it? If wrong exists then what is going to happen to it? If wrong exists then how is that going to affect the history of the world? The Bible alone gives a consistent and complete answer to these questions. Let s expand on this one a bit. THE BIBLE ALONE MAKES COMPLETE SENSE OF HOW WRONGNESS (SIN) CAME ABOUT AND HOW IT MUST BE DEALT WITH. Here is the situation that the Bible describes: The first humans chose to disobey God (submit to their own authority) and corrupted all of creation in some way, shape, or form. (Genesis 3; Romans 5:12-21; Colossians 1:20) So, man today is not normal as he was originally (Romans 5:12-21). People are now are born with a bent toward sin. No other non-biblical worldview makes this claim. All other systems say that man is in his natural state, or in other words, he is just as he should be in his nature. But if he is just as he should be, why does he do so much wrong, and on what basis can we say that any human action is morally wrong? God (who is all good) must deal with sin one way (by punishment) or another (by giving man His own righteousness and forgiving their sin Romans 5:1; 6-11). Sin cannot go overlooked by God who is fully good. Because He is just He must deal with sin. (Deuteronomy 30:15-19) God the Son, came to earth in the flesh (as Jesus Christ) to provide sinful people with a way, by lovingly dying for them (Romans 5:6-11). So now, those who continue in rebellion against God s revelation will be punished

10 10 and those who accept Him can be with Him for eternity. Sin is dealt with and God s image bearers can still live with Him as originally intended. (Isaiah 53; John 1:29 Behold the Lamb of God ; Romans 5:6-11) This is a remarkably consistent and an incredibly complete explanation in the area of ethics, which no worldview can even come close to equaling! The point I am trying to make is simple, at some point in 1 of these 3 areas of thought (and especially when it comes to morality), every religion and every religious system falls short of giving a consistent and complete answer and only the Bible is able to make complete sense of what, how, and why we exist and why we exist the way we do; only the Bible makes complete sense of how we are able to know anything at all; and only the Bible makes complete sense of what wrong is, how it came about, and how it is going to be dealt with once and for all. Truly all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in the Savior that this book is about. Only the Christian Worldview, which is the Bible the whole Bible and nothing but the Bible, gives a complete answer and a complete explanation in all 3 areas. If you as you look at yourself in the spiritual mirror of the Word of God have to admit that you are not living under its authority and not submitting to the Savior it presents, then I plead with you today; hear the Word of God! Begin a new life with Christ, made possible by His death on the Cross for your sins and mine; walking with Him according to all He has revealed in Scripture, because blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. (Psalm 1:1-2 ESV) Let s pray together. The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:7-10;14 ESV)