Everything that we do as believers, everything we do as a church is based upon a script that we follow, and it’s the Bible, it’s the Word of God. This is the foundation of everything for us, and this is the truth. We live in a world that rejects the truth. People are talking a lot about cancel culture. That’s been true of every generation since the Fall, because Satan is a liar and the father of lies and a deceiver; and his agents are disguised as angels of light, but in reality they are demons of deception.

The world has always been filled with deception. In fact, it’s so normal that in John 8 Jesus said this: “Because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me. You’re so hardwired in your sin and fallenness, you’re so much a child of Satan, that because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me.” He also said, “He who is of God hears the words of God. For this is the reason you do not hear them, because you’re not of God.” That is a diagnosis of why there is so much deception in the world: “You’re not of God, you’re of your father the devil, who is a liar,” says in the same passage.

Earlier in John 8, Jesus said this: “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Free from what? From deception and all that deception accomplishes. “The truth,” He says, “is My word. If you believe My word, you know the truth. If you don’t believe My word, it’s because you don’t know Me and you can’t believe the truth.” What an amazing pathology of the human condition.

So we live in a world that denies truth, absolute truth. No fixed standards for life are very offensive formulas when a Christian steps in and says, “Wait a minute; there is truth, there is absolute truth, there is fixed standard, there are moral laws, there is spiritual reality,” because the dominant worldview runs completely contrary to the truth.

So how do we approach that? Well it shouldn’t be too much of a challenge; although in our society, it’s playing out that way. You could start with the physical world. Everything in the material world, everything in the physical world operates on absolute fixed laws. Violating those laws has consequences—sometimes very destructive consequences, sometimes deadly consequences. And that is to say that the physical universe operates on an incomprehensible set of systems—geological, biological, mathematical—and all those laws are fixed.

I was reading this week about Saudi Arabia, where they are erecting what is to be the tallest building in the world. It’s called the Jeddah Tower. It will have 167 floors. It is six-tenths of a mile high, over half a mile high. The design of that has to compensate for the movement of the ground, the wind, the air, and all the massive complexity of weight and density in a building over half a mile high. They’re on the way to building it. It’ll be four stories higher than another building that’s already finished, that’s 163 floors up. They have to design the structure so that the wind doesn’t blow it over. Strong winds can blow it over. They have to design it with flexibility so it can move. They have to design it to bear all the complexity of the weight and all the systems it contains. They do that with amazing engineering based on fixed laws. If there was any question about the absolute nature of those laws, the whole thing would crumble.

This is consistent with the material world. Everything in the material world is regulated and controlled by fixed laws, and you really cannot get beyond those laws. Like, to use the illustration of gravity: You may not believe in gravity. Jump off a building; you won’t go up. And the complexity and the staggering reality of the universe is beyond stunning, and I’ll illustrate that to you.

You’re all wonderfully comfortable sitting here this morning, sitting in one place. But I have news for you. Right now you are 1.6 million miles from where you were yesterday. Did you hear that? You say, “Well, I was in Indiana yesterday.” No, you were 1.6 million miles from where you are today. Why? Because you are moving through the universe that fast. Let me tell you how it works. The Earth spins at 24-degree tilt on its axis, perfectly designed so that we get the seasons, which causes things to grow, which then feeds people. But the Earth is spinning at 1,000 miles an hour. Right now we’re all spinning at 1,000 miles an hour.

And not just that, but our Earth has an orbit, and that orbit moving us around the sun is going 67,000 miles an hour. So you’re not only spinning at 1,000, you’re moving forward at 67,000 miles per hour. Oh, by the way, our sun and our solar system is part of a long orbit. In fact, our solar system is being dragged through space—this is the sun and everything going around it—at 490,000 miles per hour. So you’re spinning at 1,000, moving at 67,000 within this solar system, and in a big scheme you’re going almost half a million miles an hour across space. And all the galaxies in our neighborhood are moving with us; and NASA says we’re moving toward the Great Attractor.

What in the world is a Great Attractor? It’s a region of space, and they say it’s 150 million light-years away, 150 million light-years away. One light-year is 6 trillion miles. And they know it’s out there, and they say the mass of the Great Attractor is a mass of one quintillion times greater than the sun. It has a span of 500 million light-years. It is made of visible material and stretches to the edge of infinite darkness; and all of that is moving. You can’t even calculate how fast you’re going. By the way, if you want to look at it another way, we are going 250 miles per second in the direction of a collision with the constellation Leo.

Now the solar system, going at almost half a million miles an hour, is in an orbit that will take 230 billion years to complete because it goes around the Milky Way. I know your question: “How is it we’re sitting still?” Because you’re moving at exactly the same speed. What kind of genius figured that out? You’re moving at exactly the same speed. And guess what? The atmosphere has to move at the exact same speed. People say, “Well we need to get control of the climate.” Oh really? Yesterday you were 1.6 million miles away from where you are today. And have a little confidence, but that’s ridiculous.

This massive, staggering reality is presented to us in Psalm 19 in these words: “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands,” the vastness of it. He’s the only explanation. “Day to day pours forth speech, night to night reveals knowledge.” Just the day and the night and all that is revealed in the motion of all these heavenly beings—heavenly material forces and objects communicates the vastness of God and His glory. “There’s no speech”—they’re not talking to us—“[there are no words], their voice is not heard. [But] their line has gone out through all the earth, and their utterances to the end of the world. In them He has placed a tent for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber; it rejoices as a strong man to run his course”—the sun runs a course. The sun has an orbit I just described as dragging our solar system around the Milky Way. The sun is like a strong man running a course: “Its rising is from one end of the heavens . . . to the other end of them; and there’s nothing hidden from its heat.” The sun is on a course to go through the heavens in a massive orbit. That’s what the Bible says. That’s scientifically accurate.

The atmosphere has to go with us, as I said. So if you want to worry about something, worry about that. NASA says the ultimate biohazard, the apocalyptic biohazard is the Earth stops spinning. That could be a reality, since no one knows why it is spinning. But if it stops spinning, says NASA, instantaneously the atmosphere would keep moving, and it would rip everything off the surface of the Earth. It would strip it down to absolutely nothing, and it would take with it magnetic field which protects it from the sun, and the Earth would be instantaneously incinerated. So if you want to worry about something, don’t worry when the temperature goes up one degree; worry about whether the Earth slows down.

The Bible understands this. Listen to the words of Peter in 2 Peter 3:7, “But by His word”—God’s Word—“the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire.” You can’t preserve the planet one second past God’s determined time to burn it up. “By His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. Do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.” He says that because people would say, “Well God hasn’t done anything yet, and years have passed.” Yeah, well a thousand years is one day, as far as the Lord’s concerned.

What’s He waiting for? Verse 9, “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but all to come to repentance.” Why has He not already burned up the earth? Why has He not already stopped its spinning, have everything fly off this thing and be incinerated by the sun? Because not everybody that He has called has come to repentance yet.

“But,” verse 10 says, “the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.” That is exactly the fear that is articulated in the ultimate apocalyptic biohazard of NASA—an incinerated earth.

Verse 11, Peter adds, “Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we’re looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.”

What kind of power is God, that He could create this massive universe, spinning and whirling and flying through space with trillions of other heavenly bodies all in perfectly ordered orbits? What kind of God is the Creator, and what kind of God would wipe it all out, could destroy it faster than He created it? That’s a God of amazing power, and that’s a God of amazing righteousness. Why would God destroy the world? Because of its unrighteousness.

What I’m saying to you is everything in the world is based on fixed laws, and God will destroy the creation not because something about the inanimate creation displeased Him, because when He created it He said it’s good. But what happened was sin came into the world, and that has tarnished His creation, and it is headed for destruction. So if you want to worry about something, worry about that. You say, “Well, what can I do about that?” Absolutely nothing. But you can be prepared for that: What kind of person should you be knowing this is coming?

So here’s the point. All the laws of the material world are absolute; they’re fixed; they’re inviolable—they have to be. That’s why you can build a skyscraper. That’s why you can fly in an airplane. You can do all these scientific things because there are fixed laws. You know that; that’s why you have warning systems in your car and seat belts and airbags, because we understand the deadliness of violating physical laws in the material world; and the same thing should be true of us as we contemplate the spiritual and moral world.

And by the way, Colossians 1:17 says that the Lord Himself holds all things together: “In Him all things are held together,” “all things consist.” What is the power that keeps everything spinning at exactly the correct speed, everything moving through its orbit, everything functioning the way it does day and night, the seasons and everything else? What is the power that holds it all together? It’s never been discovered; it hasn’t been discovered. We know who it is: It’s the Lord. He holds all things together by the word of His power, Hebrews 1.

So we live in a physical world that is ruled by absolutely fixed laws. People fight against that. Why? Because the implications are divine and terrifying. If the Creator has basically told us that this is a flawed universe and He’s going to destroy it and everything in it and given us an illustration, namely the Noahic flood, then we know He cares about more than just the physical world—because the last time He destroyed it, it wasn’t something wrong with the physical world; it was the moral world.

Moral law is equally fixed. Let me prove it to you. Here’s moral law number one: Whoever sins against God’s law dies. Moral law number one; nobody escapes. “It’s appointed unto men once to die; after this, the judgment.” You can’t argue with that. The Bible says, “The soul that sins will die,” Ezekiel 18. “The wages of sin is death,” Romans 6. The book of Hebrews, “It’s appointed unto men once to die.” Everybody dies. Why do we die? Because we violate the law of God. “The wages of sin is death.” “In the day you eat of the fruit, you die.” You are headed toward death, and that’s enough proof of moral law being absolute in the universe; you can’t escape.

The Creator wrote the physical and moral laws into the fabric of His creation, and no one escapes. In fact, the two are brought together in the illustration of Galatians 6:7: Whatever you sow, you—what?—you reap. And that’s true agriculturally, but that agricultural statement is merely a metaphor for the reality that when you break God’s moral laws or spiritual laws, you’re going to reap death.

So to avoid the deadly destruction of breaking the Creator’s laws, you should ask this question: “Where do I go to find out what His laws are? I need to keep them. Where do I find out His laws?” And the answer is in the Bible, because the Creator who established all the fixed laws that run the kosmos has given us His laws in the Bible.

You say, “Oh really? How do we know the Bible is true? How do we know the Bible is where the laws are?” And that’s the big question; it really is. And so I want to give you five ways, this morning, that you can know the Bible is true, because this is the most important thing there is. You have to know the laws of God, and you have to find out if the One who made the laws and who passed the death sentence—spiritual death and even eternal death—provides any escape. But first you have to know His laws.

So how do we know the Bible is the Word of God? A lot of things claim to be from God, from God’s deities. Let me give you five evidences that the Bible is the Word of God.

Number one: Experience. Experience. You’re here. Why are you here? Why do you do this? Why did you sing with all joy, this morning, the psalms and songs of praise to Christ? Why does your heart elevate and your mind be filled with joy, a sense of peace when you hear the magnificent music gives honor to Christ? Because that’s your language. Your love language is the gospel and all its truths. Why is that? Because 2 Corinthians 5:17 says this: “If anyone is in Christ, he’s a new”—what?—“creature.” OK. You’ve been transformed. You’ve been born again. You’ve been regenerated. That’s what the Bible says. The Bible says believe, and you’ll pass out of ignorance into truth, you’ll pass out of death into life, you’ll pass out of sorrow into joy, you’ll pass out of lies into truth. And that’s exactly what happens.

Every single one of you that can give a testimony of your conversion can say, “This is what I was, and I’m not that anymore.” You can say in Romans 6, “I used to be a slave of unrighteousness; now I’m a slave of righteousness.” You could say, “The things I used to love, I don’t love. The things I used to hate, I don’t hate anymore. In fact, I love what I used to hate, and I hate what I used to love.” Something dramatically changed.

Salvation comes through faith in Jesus Christ, and you become a new creation. In fact Titus 2:14 says you’re such a new creation that all of a sudden you’re “zealous for good works.” The law of God is not abusive to you. The law of God, like Paul said, is holy, just, and good. And with all your heart you want to keep God’s law because you love Him. Something dramatic has changed. Ezekiel 36 says you have a new heart, you have a new spirit within you, and you walk in obedience to God’s laws.

You cannot argue that, because the history of God’s redemptive work in the world is the history of totally transforming people. Just look at the apostle Paul—a blasphemer, a murderer, who becomes a lover of the very one he sought to persecute. You have, because you’ve come to Christ, new loves, new affections, new attitudes, new goals, new objectives. You have new attitudes; you have new power against sin. You have wisdom you never had before. You have a new reason to live, a new message to proclaim. You have joy; you have peace.

That’s the power of the transforming gospel, and it does exactly what the Bible says it will do: transforms you from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God’s dear Son. And when you start stacking up the millions of people through redemptive history whom God has saved, you have their influence not only in their own little sphere of family and friends; their collective influence in the church begins to change society. And all the great advancements philanthropically, all the great advancements in terms of caring for people and loving neighbors really reflect the advancement of Christianity, with its transformed population who want to reach out to the world around them that is trapped in sin and show them compassion and the love of God. Christianity’s made a difference in the world, not just in your life.

Now this is a very acceptable evidence of the authenticity of the Bible. “You are to let your light so shine,” Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. And Paul said, “You shine as lights in the world, this corrupt and dark world,” Philippians 2.

Yes, you can say, “The Bible is true because I believed its truth, and my life was completely changed.” But that can be a bit subjective. And it’s correct to say that the Bible should be true if you didn’t experience it. Fair enough? It has to be objectively true, not just subjectively true. Even though the subjectivity of it is massive throughout all of human history, still Scripture truth should be true whether you experienced it or not.

And after all, there are Muslims who believe their life was changed by Islam. They’re so convinced that they’ll actually give themselves up as martyrs. There are Hindus and Buddhists and Taoists and every other religion of people who have experienced something—demonic deception, for sure. People in cults who have experiences, people in false forms of Christianity who have experiences; and they’re not valid, and they’re deceptive. So there has to be something more objective. So let’s turn to a second thing.

Experience is a way you can see the trustworthiness of Scripture. But number two, let’s just talk about—I hate to use the word “science,” but that’s what we’ll say. Better to say “reality.” But let’s say science, if we define science as correspondence to reality—“science” is just a word that means “knowledge.”

So if we go to the Bible, we only need to ask this question at this point: Does the Bible reflect an understanding of reality? Did you get that? Does the Bible reflect an understanding of the way things actually are? Well let me help you with that. The first reality is this: The universe exists. That’s the reality. The universe exists; that’s a reality.

We even know the elements of the universe: time, force, action, space, and matter. Everything can fit into those five. Herbert Spencer laid that out back in the early 20th century. Everything in the created universe is time, force, action, space, and matter. Those are the categories of the material universe.

The universe exists. And oh, by the way, Genesis 1:1 tells you all five of those: “In the beginning”—that’s time—“God”—that’s force—“created”—that’s action—“the heavens”—that’s space—“and the earth”—that’s matter. First verse in the Bible. That corresponds to reality.

The second reality is this: It was created by a power greater than itself. You can’t, you can’t possibly believe—it’s insanity that the greatness and vastness of this universe, from the macro to the micro—and you have 30 trillion cells, little machines in your body alone—you can’t believe everything from the micro to the macro rose from something less than it is. It had to come from a source that’s more than it is.

So the first reality is the universe exists. The second reality is it had to be created by a power greater than it is. The third reality is that power had to be a person because we are persons. It had to be a power greater than the sum of the creation, and it had to be a person.

“Or not,” you’re saying. Well you have another option: Material is eternal. That would gag you for a long time: Material is eternal; inanimate material without any information is eternal, and out of inanimate material the entire universe came to be. That’s the ultimate absurdity, that a universe can be created by something less than it is.

So there is a universe. There had to be a Creator who is greater than it. He had to be a person because we are persons. And He knows everything about His creation, He does. He knows the earth is spherical. He knows the earth is turning on its axis at 24 degrees. He knows it is suspended in space. He knows that it is sweeping through space in an orbit as well as rotation. He knows that it’s attached to the sun, which is running from one end of heaven to the other and dragging the solar system with it. He knows the stars; He knows the galaxies; He knows the staggering reaches of space. He knows the cycles of air and water. He knows chemistry, biology, mathematics, energy, atomic structure. He has to know all that because He made it all. So if He wrote a book, if the Creator wrote a book, it would reflect this knowledge.

Whoever is intelligent and powerful enough to design, create, and sustain the incalculable complexity of the universe and everything in it is certainly intelligent enough to write a book, and that book could be relatively simple enough for us to understand, and it would be logical, comprehensible, consistent, and true to fact. If the Creator wrote a book, it would be true to what we can observe. It would be true if it said, “God made them male and female.” Is that true? Well that’s a truth that’s being denied; that’s absurd. That’s true.

The Creator of this universe would never say this: “The moon is 50,000 leagues higher than the sun and has its own light. The earth is flat and triangular, composed of seven stages—one of honey, one of sugar, one of butter, one of wine—and the earth sits on the heads of countless elephants who produce earthquakes when they shake.” That’s what the Hindu holy writing says. Well that eliminates that religion. We just wipe that out with one quote. Whoever’s revealing the Hindu religion isn’t the Creator. The Hindu Upanishad says this: “The sun is the source of all energy in the universe.” Absurd.

We can check with the Taoists and their holy book. It says this: “There are only 13 members of the body through which death can come.” Whatever that means, it’s certainly not true. We can set the Taoists aside. How about the Buddhists: “Earthquakes are caused by wind moving water and water moving the land.” Wrong. We just eliminated Hinduism, Taoism, and Buddhism in three minutes. The Creator didn’t write their books.

The book of Mormon, quote from 2 Nephi 2: “Adam fell that men might have joy.” Really? “Adam fell that men might have joy”? I don’t think so. And by the way, the book of Mormon, Alma chapter 7, verse 10, says Jesus would be born in Jerusalem. Nice try. He was born in Bethlehem. Christian Science, Science and Health and Key to the Scriptures, chapter 14, page 475, says, “Man is not made of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements; and man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death.” That’s enough of that. I mean, what I’m trying to say to you is false religion discloses itself because what it says doesn’t correspond to reality.

Divine and holy revelation that is historically accurate—morally, historically inaccurate; supposed divine revelation, it is historically inaccurate, morally inferior, spiritually muddled, scientifically wrong, doesn’t come from the Creator, the true God. The true Creator knows His creation. And He is, by the way, not only a genius beyond imagination, but He is a communication genius because He spoke it all into existence. Everything does what it does because it has been given information, and it operates by information. What causes the Earth to spin? What causes it to go into orbit? Why does it stay in orbit? The whole of the universe depends on information. Information controls absolutely everything. That has to come from someplace; it has to come from the Creator. So if He wrote a book, He would get the information right.

You know, recently the grand omission of past science has been discovered, and that is information. We now understand that everything operates by information. The old idea that more complex organisms came from simple organisms, more complex machines came from simpler machines has been proven to be impossible. Despite massive efforts, science can never demonstrate that you can have something simple become complex, or something spontaneously occur that reengineers an operating entity without any external information. Information doesn’t arise spontaneously. When something changes, it mutates, and that’s always a degrading reality; because everything runs on this amazing set of laws. We know God is an infinite communicator and has embedded His laws in everything He made.

Materials cannot be aggregated—they cannot aggregate themselves to hold design. Silicone and copper don’t create a TV. They can hold the concept of a TV, but they don’t create the TV. It has to be exogenous—or external—information applied to the materials. All information is exogenous to the matter that holds it. It exists as a separate entity that can be applied to matter.

So where does all this massive universe full of information come from? No cellulose lying around by itself organized into a newspaper, cut itself into shape, produced purified ink, self-applied the ink into meaningful symbols that gave you the latest sports scores and stock prices. Every living thing is a complicated machine operated on information. You have 30 trillion cells in your body, 200 different kinds. Von Neumann, the scientist talking about cells as a machine, said, “Supremely complex, capable of reproduction, growth, survival, self-diagnosis, self-repairing, with a complex cellular communication and information storage and retrieval system.” And you got 30 trillion of those little machines in you.

Evolutionists are quick to say, “Enough time, and things happen.” Foolishness. Information does not self-originate or self-assemble, there has to be a source of information. And we would think that, if we’re going to say God is the source, that He would get things right. We have to go back to an intelligent person who can communicate; and that’s why in Genesis it says He created by speaking: “God said, ‘Let there be light.’” And that’s why in John 1:1 when it introduces us to the Son of God, He is the Word, and He made everything that is made, and without Him was nothing made that was made. Everything has to be spoken into existence from an intelligent mind. And when God speaks, He gets it right. Let me show you some quick illustrations.

The Bible says in Isaiah 40:26 that it is God who creates the universe; and it says He holds the stars together by His power, and “not one of them is missing.” That verse suggests to us the first law of thermodynamics, that nothing is ever destroyed. Did you get that? Nothing is ever destroyed. Ecclesiastes 1:10, “Is there anything of which one might say, ‘See this, it is new’?” And the answer follows, “Already it has existed for ages which were before us.” There’s nothing new. Everything God created still exists. Ancient writers of the Bible, thousands of years before the laws of thermodynamics, have categorically stated—were affirming the conservation of mass and energy. Nothing is ever lost.

Second law of thermodynamics says that things are breaking down. They go from order to disorder; they go from kosmos to chaos, from system to non-system. They are cursed. They’re going the opposite way the evolutionists would want you to believe. The day is going to come when God stops that disorder, creates a new heaven and a new earth.

Think about water. There are 332.5 million cubic miles of water on the earth—that’s a lot of water. One cubic mile equals 1.1 trillion gallons; 96.5 percent of the water on the earth is in the ocean; 71 percent of the earth’s surface is covered by water. Fresh water is just 3 percent; and of the 3 percent of fresh water on the earth, only 1 percent is flowing in rivers and streams. The other 2 percent of the fresh water is in polar icecaps and glaciers. So we’re drinking the 1 percent.

And how is it that the water is always available? Because the water that the Lord created when He created water is exactly the same amount today as it was then. What’s it to doing? It’s going through the hydrological cycle. Goes from evaporation to condensation to precipitation. That’s the cycle. Clouds move over the land, drop water through precipitation; the rain runs into the creeks, the creeks run into the streams, the streams run into the sea; evaporation process takes place all the way along the path, including from the sea.

Listen to what Ecclesiastes 1 and Isaiah 55 say: “All the rivers flow into the sea, yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, there they flow again.” Listen to Isaiah 55:10, “For . . . the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth.” It comes down; it returns after it’s watered the earth. Job 36 speaks of evaporation and condensation: “[God] draws up the drops of water, they distill rain from the mist, which the clouds pour down, they drip upon man abundantly.” The Creator knows the cycle of water.

It was the 1500s when Capernicus first presented the idea that the earth was in motion. Around that time, when Galileo and Kepler gave birth to modern astronomy, at the time they thought there were a thousand stars. Well if they read Genesis, they’d know better than that. The Creator who wrote Genesis says this: “I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore.” God wanted to tell you how many stars there are; He said, “Try counting sand on all the seashore.” Jeremiah 33:22, God is speaking: “As the host of heaven cannot be counted and the sand of the sea cannot be measured”—the sand and the stars are compared to each other. Scientists are telling us these days there are trillions upon trillions of galaxies. The Creator knew that; His book told us He knew that.

Job, one of the oldest books in the Bible, Job 26:7 says, “[He] hangs the earth on nothing.” “[He] hangs the earth on nothing.” He hangs the earth on nothing; of course the Creator knows that. Oh by the way, in the same book, chapter 38, verse 14, it says, “[He turns the earth] like clay to the seal.” If you go back into ancient times, they had clay, and they would make a contract in clay, and then they would put their signature down, and they did that by having like a rolling pin with a raised signature, and they would roll it across the soft clay, and it would embed the signature. And Job is saying, “Like you turn a rolling pin, so the Earth moves on its axis. It is turned like clay to the seal.”

Isaiah 40, verse 22 speaks of the circle of the earth, the chug of the earth. It’s round; it’s not flat. The science of isostasy: If you try to roll a ball that’s not round, you know what it does. You wouldn’t want to be on an earth like that; we’d all have some kind of permanent twitch. So Isaiah 40, verse 12, says, “[God] has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, marked off the heavens by the span, calculated the dust of the earth by the measure, weighed the mountains in a balance and the hills in a pair of scales.” He knows how to make this thing spin perfectly by balancing everything. No, this Creator, He knows reality.

So how do we know the Bible is true? Experience, science; just quickly, the third is miracles. If you want a book by God, it should be filled with things that God does supernaturally; that’s how He reveals Himself. And you have miracles all through the Bible flourishing in the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. Miracles are God stepping into the natural world and stopping the natural process and overriding it with His divine power. The miracles need to be visible with many eyewitnesses; and you have that concerning the miracles of the Bible. You have it during the life of our Lord: did His miracles before the whole population of Israel. So you want a book that demonstrates that God is acting miraculously, and there are many eyewitnesses who can validate it. That’s why we have the four gospel accounts and all the rest of the New Testament. John says, “We’ve seen with our own eyes the miracles.”

A fourth line of evidence for the Bible’s trustworthiness is prophecy, prophecy. Isaiah 41, God says, “You’re trying to tell me you’re God? You want to tell me you have a different god than Me? Here’s My question.” Listen to Isaiah 41 and verse 21: “Present your case”—present your case for your god. “‘Bring forward your strong argument,’ the King of Jacob says. Let them bring forth and declare to us what is going to take place.” Oh, yeah, predict the future; do that, predict the future. “Declare the things that are going to come afterward, that we may know you are gods.” If you can’t tell the future, you’re not God.

The Bible is loaded with prophecies. Historic prophecies are given in the Old Testament, fulfilled in the Old Testament; given in the New Testament, fulfilled in the New Testament; fulfilled in the first coming of Christ. Peter Stoner wrote a book called Science Speaks years ago. He took just eight Old Testament prophecies that related to Christ, put them all together. He was a mathematical probability guy. And this is what he said. He took eight miracles with their component elements and said these were prophecies that basically are given, and we can see the fulfillment historically in the Old Testament, and some in the case of Christ. He said this happening by chance—just eight of these prophecies with their components—he said this would be the probability of that happening by chance—here’s a paragraph from his book: “Take 10 to the 17th power of silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all the state of Texas two feet deep.” OK, now you got it? Visualize that: the state of Texas two feet deep in silver dollars. “Mark one of those silver dollars, and then stir the whole mass, give a blind man one pick. You’ll have the same chance as these things coming to pass by coincidence.” Look at the Bible, and look at the prophecies. God promised to destroy Tyre; He destroyed it in detail—and many other prophecies.

But let’s come to the ultimate proof: Jesus Christ. This is the top. We go from experience to science to miracles to prophecy, fulfilled prophecy. God can, because He’s God, do miracles, interrupt this natural order. God can, and God alone can, predict the future. But the greatest proof of Scripture is Christ. There’s never been anyone like Him; He is not a human invention.

The Old Testament declares that the Messiah would come: the Mediator, the Reconciler, the Redeemer, the Savior, the Servant, the Branch, the great prophet. And the Old Testament says He would be a man without a human father, a seed of the woman. He would come in the line of Seth and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and David. He would be virgin born; He’d be born in Bethlehem. He would arrive 483 years at the decree of Artaxerxes. He would be preceded by a prophet and a herald. He would speak God’s word. He would be a worker of miracles. He would enter Jerusalem on the colt of a donkey. He would be a slave of Jehovah, doing His will. He would be anointed by the Holy Spirit. He would be rejected; He would be despised. He would suffer crucifixion. He would be nailed. He would be pierced. He would rise from the dead. He would become a light to the Jews and the nations for salvation. He would be exalted as King. All that prophesied.

Who was Jesus? Who was the direct descendant of King David? It was Him, whose public ministry began approximately 483 years after the Babylonian captivity. He was born in Bethlehem, born of a virgin. Claimed to be the Son of God, preceded by the powerful preaching of John the Baptist, the forerunner renowned for wisdom, teaching, power, righteousness. He performed miracles. He entered Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. He was scourged, beaten, spit on, pierced, abhorred, despised, tortured, killed. Executed by crucifixion, His feet were pierced. He was numbered with criminals. He died for the sins of the world, buried in a rich man’s tomb. His clothing was distributed by the casting of lots. He was later raised from the dead. He ascended into glory. And Jesus fulfilled all of that.

And Jesus Himself, in Luke’s gospel, looks back at the Old Testament in chapter 24, and He said, “It really is all about Me.” Verse 25, “He said . . . ‘O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?’ Then beginning with Moses and with all the Prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” And later in that chapter, it says, “He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,” and to understand the Scriptures were about Him, that He “would suffer and rise again . . . and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations.”

The great capstone of evidence for the Scripture’s truthfulness is none other than Jesus Christ. And the most important thing about Him is this; you want to know this about God: The God who made all these laws and made all these rules and built in all these terrible consequences, has He provided a way for us to escape? We’re all going to die; can we escape? And the answer is yes. Jesus said this: “Because I live”—what?—“you shall live also.” He conquered death that we might rise to eternal life. Here’s the good news: The lawgiver is a forgiver, is a life-giver.

Father, we thank You for our time in Your truth this morning; so much more to be said. But thank You for enriching us with it. And now we come to Your Table with eager hearts. Be honored as we worship You in taking these simple elements that remind us of our Savior’s death on our behalf.