Behold the Bible

Good afternoon students. My name is Jesse, and I'm from just up the road in North Carolina. We are standing here today in this free speech zone, and I know it's kind of far from everyone, and perhaps you cannot hear me. Nevertheless, I'd like to take a moment and share a message with you this day, a message from God’s Word, the Holy Bible. I'm not here to yell and scream. I’m not here to act like a clown. I’m not dressed in gaudy clothing with a whole bunch of banners and signs. I'm simply standing here with my Bible in my hand, and I'm hoping that as you pass by, you will hear some seed of truth from this Bible.

You see, the Bible is not just some manmade book. It's not like your science textbook. The Bible is the revelation of God, a special revelation of God, the Creator of heaven and earth. God Himself wrote it through men moved by the Holy Spirit. The Scriptures say:

“For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (II Peter 1:21).

I want to read a passage to you from the fourth chapter of Hebrews in the New Testament. It is a claim made by the Word of God concerning the Word of God, a claim that no other religious book claims for itself. Some manmade religious books assert to be from God or gods, but they are full of contradictions and full of prophecies that never came true. But, the Bible makes a claim about itself right here in Hebrews 4:12-13, a claim that I dare say it goes on to back up:

“For the word of God is quick, and powerful …”

My friends, that means living and powerful. It’s a LIVING word.

“… and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

My friends, God's word can discern your thoughts and your intentions. God's law speaks to your thoughts and your intentions. Our Creator doesn't just look upon the outside, He judges the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Where do you stand before Him when your deepest, darkest secrets are revealed? Elsewhere, the Bible says,

“Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).

Why?

Because “God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:14).

It goes on to say here in Hebrews 12:13:

“Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”

[Preacher: What’s this?

Heckler: It's my information.

Preacher: I'm not taking people's information.

Heckler: Sir, sir, no, sir. This is not about, it’s about talking personally not publicly.

Preacher: Well, I’m talking publicly.

Heckler: You're talking publicly? But, I'd like to have a personal conversation.

Preacher: Well, you'll talk personally to my friend over there. I'm preaching right now, and you are interrupting me. That is kind of rude.

Heckler: Wait, wait, wait! I'm not interrupting anyone. I’d like to have a personal conversation with you.

Preacher: Well, when I'm done preaching, I'll be happy to speak with you personally. For now, you can speak with my friend. You know, when your teacher is speaking in class, you don't just go up and interrupt him.

Heckler: What's that? I’d like to have a personal conversation with you, and I just don’t understand why you won’t be sensitive to my feelings and stop to speak with me.

Preacher: I like to preach, and you are not being sensitive to my feelings, sir.  Shame on you. You need to repent. I know you want to just mock the Bible. I know exactly what you are up to.]

The Bible is described in this passage as a person. It is referred to with the personal pronoun. Indeed, it is more than just a book. Now, I know many of you would mock the Scriptures and say they are just “written by men” and contradict themselves and contradict “science.” These things simply aren't true. There are no contradictions or errors in the Scriptures.

There may be something apparent when it is ripped out of its context, but when you dive into the text and read it, interpreting it in its proper context, Scripture with Scripture, everything is progressively unfolded—one progressive theme, one truth without contradiction and without compromise. Real observable science is not in conflict with the Bible. In fact, the Holy Word of God made scientific statements long before man-made science “discovered” scientific truth. For example, the Old Testament speaks of the benefits of running water to protect from disease long before our European forefathers in the Middle Ages “discovered” that disease was spread through the use of stale and standing water in times of war and sickness.

The Bible is one book, my friends. It's not just a collection of random writings. It's not just a study in randomness, as can be said of the Quran and some of these other writings that say one thing on one page and then completely contradict themselves on another. God's Word, the Bible, is one book; and it bears distinct marks which attest to this unity.

From its very beginning, the Bible gives testimony to ONE GOD, not many gods, not one God in the Old Testament, not another in the New Testament. It testifies of ONE God, not a demigod, but one God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things.  It is He of whom it is written, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). It is He of whom it is written at the end: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last” (Revelation 22:13).

Whenever God speaks or acts in His Word, He is the same and always consistent with Himself.

[How are you today, sir? I’m just talking a little bit about the Lord today. If you would like a gospel message, it’s free for you.]

Whatever God speaks or acts in His Word, my friends, He is consistent with Himself and with all revelation concerning Him. He is not distant, unknowable, and inconsistent like Allah of the Quran who cannot be known, who says one thing in one sura and then changes His mind and says something else in another sura.

The Bible not only gives testimony of ONE GOD, it forms ONE CONTINUOUS STORY, not a collection of random myths and tales, but one continuous narrative: the story of humanity in relation to its Maker, the history of humanity in relation to God. Every page of the Scriptures speaks to this story in one form or another.

Another mark of the Bible's unity and its supernatural quality is that it HAZARDS the most unlikely predictions concerning the future, and when centuries have brought about the appointed time, it records their fulfillment. My friends, the Bible is full of detailed and very specific prophecies, ordered at the mouths of God's prophets by the Holy Spirit, hundreds, sometimes thousands of years before such unlikely events occur. Then, as the time goes by and God gives revelation, additional revelation down through the centuries, the Bible records the fulfillment of these unlikely predictions in such a way that there could have been no coincidence or man-made collusion.

In the Book of Isaiah, the prophet comes to Hezekiah, the King of Judah, who had been boasting of his wealth and his treasures to visiting ambassadors from Babylon. This was in the days of the mighty empire of Assyria and long before Babylon was anything more than a vassal province. Isaiah says to the King:

“Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store unto this day, shall be carried into Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the LORD. And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon” (II Kings 20:17-18).

At the time, Babylon had no power or influence to effect such a thing, and there was no indication whatsoever that she ever could. Yet, it happened 150 years later. Just as it was predicted, so it was fulfilled.

People's names in the Scriptures, my friends, are recorded long before their birth. The Bible makes an unlikely prophecy, also in the Book of Isaiah, concerning Cyrus the Persian who would give the Jews permission to return to their homeland and rebuild their temple. His name is revealed 200 years before his birth (Isaiah 44:28), even before Babylon was a mighty kingdom, the mighty kingdom that the Persians would overthrow in 538 BC.

Forty-eight details are prophesied about Jesus the Messiah in the Old Testament long before His birth, specific details that seemed quite unlikely, so unlikely that when they were fulfilled, the people of Jesus' day who knew the Scriptures just couldn't believe them. It was written in the Prophet Micah about 700 years before Christ that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, an obscure village on the outskirts of Jerusalem. From Bethlehem would come this Messiah, this anointed One of Israel (Micah 5:2). Jesus was born in Bethlehem, my friends. The star gave testimony over the place of His birth. The angels appeared and gave glory in the presence of the nearby shepherds. All was fulfilled exactly as it was written centuries before.

In the Prophet Zechariah, about h