Doctrine For Difficult Days

[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
The Bible

Preservation

One of the objective proofs, one of the external proofs, has been the marvelous preservation of the Bible. The prophet Jeremiah tells about a king of old who, when the Word was sent to him, took a penknife and cut it to pieces (see Jeremiah 36:20-26). But it was rewritten, and we have that Word today.

Down through the centuries there have been a great many Bible burnings. Even now there’s a great deal of antagonism toward the Bible. In our country today it is not being burned because we think that we are too civilized for such behavior. The way enemies of God’s Word try to get rid of it now is just to outlaw it in our schools and in many other places. (Yet we talk about our freedom of religion and freedom of speech.)

In spite of all the attacks that have been made upon the Bible, it still today exists — and, of course, it’s one of the best-sellers. For many years it was the best-seller, but it’s not today. I regret to have to say that, but it is true. And that is certainly a commentary on our contemporary society. It reveals that the Bible is not really occupying the place that it once did in the history and in the life of this nation. Yet I think the amazing preservation of the Word of God is worthy of consideration.
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TO BE CONTINUED...

[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Inspiration

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. (2 Timothy 3:16)

There are four words that we have emphasized in the chapter on Bible Doctrine that require more explanation to understand their meanings. We need to distinguish among them and not be confused by them. They are: revelation, inspiration, illumination, and preservation. These four words are all-important. We will focus on inspiration in this chapter, but first we’ll review all four.

Revelation means that God has spoken. We’ve already talked about that. And we have actually two sources of revelation, the natural and supernatural. The supernatural is sometimes called natural and special revelation.

In natural revelation, God has spoken in the heavens and on the earth:

The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork.
(Psalms 19:1)

It is a limited knowledge of God that is given in creation, of course. God has revealed His person and He has revealed His power in creation, but nothing else. You will never find the love of God revealed in creation.

Then you have the supernatural or special revelation, which is the Bible. The Bible is God’s Word to man. Over 2,500 times the Old Testament says, “Thus saith the Lord,” or a cognate expression such as “God says” or “God has spoken.” And the New Testament confirms this. The New Testament speaks of the Old Testament as being God’s Word.

The second word, inspiration, guarantees the revelation of God, guarantees that we do have the Word of God. Illumination means that the Holy Spirit takes the Word of God and makes it real to the believer, and only to the believer. Then the fourth is preservation. That is actually the history of the Bible from the very beginning down to the present hour.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Inspiration

What Inspiration Means

The Bible claims to be the Word of God, and we want to look at the validity of that claim. First of all, let’s look at our key verse, 2 Timothy 3:16, in the Amplified New Testament.

Every Scripture is God-breathed — given by His inspiration — and profitable for instruction, for reproof and conviction of sin, for correction of error and discipline in obedience, and for training in righteousness [that is, in holy living in conformity to God’s will in thought, purpose and action].

“Every Scripture is God-breathed.” The word there is theopneustos. Theos means “God.” Pneuo means “breathe” (we get our word “pneumonia” from that word). Every Scripture is God-breathed. The New King James translation reads, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.” This means that God breathed in the sense that these men, as Peter says, “were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21 niv). He pictures it as a sailing vessel that is carried out to sea by the wind blowing into the sails, pushing it along. And these men who were chosen to write the Scriptures were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

That does not mean that these men were perfect in everything they said. Actually, they were very imperfect men. The five books of the Bible written by Moses we believe to be inspired, and we have them today as the Word of God. Doesn’t this mean that Moses was holy in the sense that he never made a mistake? Oh, no, for this very record tells us of several mistakes that he himself made. But when it came to writing the Word that God had given him, he made no error there because the Holy Spirit was the One who was using him, moving him along as he wrote. That is the claim of the Word of God.
 
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Theories of Inspiration

First of all, we’ll look at some of the theories of inspiration, and there are all sorts. We’re living in a day which is so complicated that when someone says that he believes the Bible is inspired, you cannot let it rest there. You have to find out what he means, because there are so many theories abroad.

The first theory that we will look at is, in my opinion, the weakest. It is the one that has no life in it whatsoever. It is called the natural theory of inspiration. That simply means that the Bible is inspired like Shakespeare was inspired to write Romeo and Juliet and that there’s no more inspiration in the Bible than there is in Romeo and Juliet. As they see it, Shakespeare was sort of a genius in what he wrote, and these men who wrote the Bible were religious geniuses. Or they may say that Karl Marx was inspired to write Das Kapital, the bible of Communism today. That theory is called natural inspiration, and that is what some people understand inspiration to be — yet it is the weakest argument of all.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Inspiration

The second theory is universal inspiration, which means that anyone who professes to be a Christian is inspired. In other words, you could write something that would be just as worthy and worthwhile and be of as great a value as anything Paul wrote or David wrote. In fact, some proponents of this theory think you can do better than they did! A professor at Columbia University said some years ago that he thought he could. One of his students, apparently a pretty smart egghead in the class, suggested to the professor that if he would turn out something that would survive like Psalms 23, he would accept that theory. But so far neither that professor nor anyone else has written anything that’s been the blessing that the Twenty-third Psalms has been.

Among these folks who believe in the natural theory of inspiration or that of universal inspiration, of course, are the ones who believe that Mary Baker Eddy’s book, Science and Health, was inspired. Her book has been corrected a great deal, by the way. In the original copy, she said that when a lobster lost its claw it would grow another. Well, since it doesn’t, they’ve deleted that from her book. And they have relieved it of several other embarrassing statements that were made in the original copies. Nevertheless, they believe that Science and Health is inspired.

The Mormons believe in what Joseph Smith supposedly wrote, which he didn’t write, by the way. Joseph Smith was an ignorant man, totally incapable of writing anything that would compare with The Book of Mormon. It is well authenticated today that The Book of Mormon was written by a Presbyterian preacher, a fellow who did a great deal of traveling on horseback through Ohio, and he compared the hills of Ohio to the hills of Judah. If you read The Book of Mormon, bear that in mind, and the comparison is beautiful from that viewpoint. But Joe Smith happened to go into a print shop where this manuscript was, and after he was gone, the manuscript was missing. The strange thing is that, when Joseph Smith published the manuscript, he claimed to have gotten it from the angel Maroni on top of a mountain. He had quite a story about how the devil tried to take the golden plates away from him. It is interesting that many intelligent people accept that as truth today, because they believe in universal inspiration. They think anyone could write something that would compare to the Bible.

Now there’s another theory of inspiration which holds that the thoughts and the concepts of the Bible are inspired. For instance, these people accept the Sermon on the Mount as being inspired, but they don’t like to say that all of it is inspired. They do not believe the words are inspired. They don’t mind a new translation that uses the idiom of the day. Well, when you take the Word of God and rewrite it like that, it simply means that you believe its concepts are inspired, but you do not attach too much value to the actual words that are in the Bible.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Inspiration

Oh, my friend, the words are all-important. You cannot have thoughts and concepts without words. You cannot have confidence in a thought-and-concept version of Scripture, because there are shades of meaning that can be distorted. Let me illustrate with a story about a young lady who had taken singing lessons. Because her father had plenty of money, she had taken voice lessons from the best teacher. And the best teacher had taught her because the father paid well. The time came for her to give a concert. After the concert she was all excited, and when her friend came in she said, “You sat next to my teacher, what did he say?”

“Well….” The friend hesitated a moment, then said, “He said that you sang in a heavenly manner.”

“He did? That is wonderful!” Then she got to thinking about it — the teacher had never said anything like that before. So she insisted, “Now is that exactly what he said?”

“Well,” this friend said, “that’s what he meant.”

“But I want to know the exact words he used. What did he say?”

“Well if you must know, he said, ‘That was an unearthly noise.’”

May I say, thoughts and concepts are not what we base inspiration on. That’s as farfetched as anything can possibly be.

Another theory of inspiration is known as the theory of partial inspiration. That means that the Bible contains the Word of God. You have to watch some of these fellows today, especially some of these preachers. They’ll say, “I believe the Bible contains the Word of God.” When you pin them down, this is what they’ll say: “I believe that the Golden Rule is inspired. It just thrills me when I read it. But I want you to know, where it says God told the people of Israel to destroy all the Amalekites, I don’t like it. That’s not inspired.” They say the Bible contains the Word of God and then pick out what they consider to be the Word of God. Well, that’s putting yourself in the position of God the Holy Spirit, as if you were able to tell what is the Word of God and what is not the Word of God.

I used to sit in a ministerial meeting with a preacher like that. I had my New Testament with me one day, and I asked him if he would mind underlining what he thought was the Word of God in the Epistle to the Romans, but he wouldn’t do it. I said, “Go ahead. You keep saying that the Bible contains the Word of God, and I’m in doubt about that because it’s hard for me to tell which is and which is not. If I could have the benefit of knowing what is the Word of God, you could help me a great deal.” It’s mighty hard to pin them down, but they will always say that Psalms 23 is inspired, and then go on from there.

The theory that passes as “Bartonism” in this country holds that the Bible is the Word of God — if it is the Word of God to you. Now if you read Psalms 23 and it’s the Word of God to you, then it’s the inspired Word of God. But if you read another Psalms that you don’t like, then it is not the Word of God to you, you see. There are many Americans and especially many American preachers (quite a few of them are young preachers) who take that viewpoint. It all comes back to this theory of partial inspiration. The partial inspiration theory means that not all of the Bible is the Word of God.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Inspiration

Now may I take up another theory that, instead of being liberal, is based on extreme fundamentalism. It is known as the mechanical or dictation theory of inspiration. These men hold that the Holy Spirit took up the penmen of the Scriptures, like you would pick up your pen, and He wrote with them. The Holy Spirit wrote with Moses at first, then He wrote with Joshua. And so on down through David and all the way to Paul and John. They believe that these men were nothing in the world but pens in the hand of the Holy Spirit.

May I say, that theory is wrong, and it can be proven so from this viewpoint: If it had been true, we would have the same style of writing all the way through the Bible. But we do not have the same style. Actually, Dr. Luke writes classical Greek. He is the only one who uses what is known as a periodic sentence, which is the hardest sentence in the Greek to translate. Paul does come through with a periodic sentence every now and then, but it’s Dr. Luke who uses it consistently. In contrast, Simon Peter butchered the Greek language in his two epistles. But don’t call him ignorant! I heard a Greek professor do that once. It was during a meeting of teachers who taught Greek. I went to him afterward and said, “Doctor, let’s be very frank one with another. I’m teaching first-year Greek, but the Greek that I write is atrocious. How is yours?” He had a Ph.D.in Greek, but he was very honest about it. He said, “If you really want to know the truth, I wouldn’t do any better than Simon Peter did.” I said, “Then do you want somebody to call you ignorant? You ought not to call Simon Peter ignorant. He’s not writing in his own language.”

Actually, I think Peter did pretty well, considering his native language was Aramaic. But, you see, the differences in writing style prove that God did not use the dictation method. God is no dictator. He did not destroy the personality of these men whom He chose to write Scripture! When Paul wrote, he expressed his heart. When Peter wrote, he expressed his heart and wrote in his natural style. The thing that makes it God’s Book is that through these various writers God communicated to mankind exactly what He wanted to say, and He wouldn’t change a sentence of it today! Neither has He anything to add to it. He hasn’t come out with a new volume of things He didn’t know two thousand years ago. He gave it all at that particular time.

Now this leads me to the viewpoint which we who are Bible teachers hold today: plenary, verbal inspiration. Verbal means “the words.” Plenary means “full.” When you eat too much, you are plenary, meaning full. Plenary, verbal inspiration means that the words are inspired and that God spoke all these words. Some folks speak about our verse-by-verse study of the Scriptures. And I tell them, “I’m not conducting a verse-by-verse study of the New Testament. The verses are manmade. They were added years later by men. I’m conducting a word-by-word study of the Word of God.” Since the words are inspired, and God spoke all these words, I think every word should be examined, every word should be considered.

Let me clarify an important point: I am talking about the autographs, the original manuscripts of the Greek text. Those are what the Bible claims to be the inspired Word of God. I want you to notice several passages, because it is important to see that the Bible makes this claim. We’ll start near the beginning of the Old Testament:

Then Moses said to the Lord, “O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” (Exodus 4:10)
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Inspiration

It may be that Moses had some sort of impediment of speech. But when you hear him talking to the nation Israel, you don’t get that impression, do you? He was able to talk to them. Now will you notice this:

So the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord? Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.” But he said, “O my Lord, please send by the hand of whomever else You may send.” So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and He said: “Is not Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he can speak well. And look, he is also coming out to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. Now you shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth. And I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and I will teach you what you shall do.” (Exodus 4:11-15)

Notice that He said “words” and “your mouth” — not concepts. God did not leave it to these men. He didn’t give them a thought and then let them put it into words. God gave them the words. That’s all-important. This business today of saying, “Well, I believe the Bible contains the Word of God,” or, “I believe that the concepts and the thoughts are inspired,” is nonsense, my friend. Let’s boil this down. How are you going to communicate a thought or a concept? You have to use words to do it. And if you don’t use the right words, you’ll be misunderstood.

The words are inspired. That’s the reason I keep saying, “Let’s get back to the actual words of Scripture and find out what really was said. What did John really say in the Book of Revelation? What did Paul really say in the Epistle to the Romans? What is the actual word he used?” I attach a great deal of importance to the words.

Let’s keep reading God’s instructions to Moses:

You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. (Deuteronomy 4:2)
 
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Prophets’ Dilemma

Now let’s go to the New Testament. Oh, my friend, we can multiply these examples by the hundreds! Peter says that the Old Testament prophets wrote of things they did not understand.

Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. (1 Peter 1:10-11)

As we see in this passage, all the prophets prophesied diligently concerning this grace, this salvation that was coming. They spoke of the sufferings of Christ and the grace of God. We find this in Isaiah 53 and in Psalms 22 as well as in many other Scriptures.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Inspiration

“And the glories that would follow” can be found, for example, in Isaiah 11 and Psalms 45. The prophets all spoke of Christ’s suffering and His sovereignty and of the glory that is to come when Christ returns as King to the earth to establish His Kingdom.

“The Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating” tells us specifically that the prophets of the Old Testament wrote by the Spirit of Christ. This is one of the many statements contained in the Word of God declaring that the Old Testament was inspired of God. These men wrote by the “Spirit of Christ.”

The prophets wrote some things which they themselves did not grasp. They searched for the meaning diligently, “searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.” There are many places in the Old Testament that speak of the suffering of Christ, and there are many other places that speak of the sovereignty of Christ, of the Kingdom Age. Grace and glory are combined, and it was difficult for them to understand this. For example, Isaiah wrote in the fifty-third chapter of the sufferings of Christ; then in the eleventh chapter he wrote of the Messiah coming in power and glory to the earth to establish His Kingdom. This seeming contradiction was very puzzling to the prophets, and they tried to find out how both could be true.

You and I are in the unique position of living in that interval of time between the suffering of Christ, which is in the past, and the glory of Christ, which is yet in the future.

It will help you to understand the prophecies of the suffering and sovereignty of Christ if you picture the two events as great mountain peaks. Here in Pasadena we have a backdrop of the San Gabriel Mountains. As the crow flies they are about five miles away, but driving the winding road to get there makes them about twenty-five miles away. Mount Wilson is in the foreground and is approximately six thousand feet high. Behind that peak we can see another peak, Mount Waterman, which looks as if it is the same height as Mount Wilson. Actually, Mount Waterman is over eight thousand feet high. However, it looks as if they are the same height and that they are right together. In actual fact, they are not together at all. A tremendous valley between twenty-five and thirty-five miles across separates them. And I estimate that it is probably fifty miles from one mountain peak to the other. Yet, seeing them from a distance, you would think they were right together.

In just such a way, the prophets looking into the future saw the suffering of Christ and the glory of Christ as two mountain peaks which appeared to be right together. I believe that there were skeptics and higher critics in those days who argued, “This is a conflict; the Scriptures are in contradiction. You cannot have it both ways. Either He comes to suffer or He comes to reign.” Of course, we know now that both are true. And the valley between them is the church age, which already is around two thousand years in length.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Inspiration

They saw the Cross of Christ; they saw the Crown. They saw them as two mountain peaks, but they did not see the valley between where you and I are. And Peter says that they wanted to look into these things.

Now let’s see the accuracy of the Old Testament in Paul’s experience when he was in Rome, awaiting trial by Caesar. Though he was in chains, he was permitted to speak to his fellow Jews as they came with questions about Christ. Some believed, though others refused to believe:

So when they did not agree among themselves, they departed after Paul had said one word: “The Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah the prophet to our fathers.” (Acts 28:25)

In other words, Paul said to these Jews, “The Holy Spirit was speaking through Isaiah, and here is exactly what he said.”

Go to this people and say:

“Hearing you will hear, and shall not understand;
And seeing you will see, and not perceive;
For the hearts of this people have grown dull.
Their ears are hard of hearing,
And their eyes they have closed,
Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears.” (Acts 28:26-27)

That’s a tremendous thing!

Notice our Lord’s assurance to His apostles when they faced persecution:

For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. (Matthew 10:20)

Now let’s look at God’s directions to David in the building of the temple:

All this, said David, have I been made to understand in writing from the hand of Jehovah, even all the works of this pattern. (1 Chronicle 28:19 asv)

And when God was giving a message to the pagan king of Babylon, He wrote it in words: “The fingers of a man’s hand appeared and wrote” (Daniel 5:5). All the way through, the Word of God makes it clear that it is the words that are inspired. And that, my friend, is one of the most important truths to keep before us.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Inspiration

Testing the Word

Somebody says to me, “How do you know, then, that the Bible is the Word of God? Have you any tests that you can make?” Yes, we can make tests. I have already mentioned fulfilled prophecy, which is one of the greatest proofs. Remember the great, fearsome image seen by Nebuchadnezzar in a vision representing three kingdoms which would seize world domination in the future — Babylon, Media-Persia, and Greco-Macedonia. The prophecies of the three kingdoms as seen by this man and interpreted by Daniel the prophet have been literally fulfilled. And God gave to Daniel (as recorded in chapter 8) all the details concerning the transfer of power from the East to the West. So clear is it that the critics launched an onslaught against the sixth century b.c. dating of the Book of Daniel. Porphyry, a heretic in the third century a.d., declared that the Book of Daniel was a forgery, written during the time of Antiochus Epiphanes and the Maccabees (170 b.c.), almost four hundred years after Daniel had lived. However, the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament, was written prior to that time, and it contains the Book of Daniel. And, of course, the greatest proof that the man Daniel was not a deceiver and his book was not a forgery is the endorsement by the Lord Jesus Christ who called Daniel “the prophet” and cited a prophetic truth from his book (Matthew 24:15). And believe me, friend, it’s amazing. If that were the only prophecy, we might seriously question it, but we can’t when there are literally hundreds of fulfilled prophecies.

This is another example: Tyre was the capital of the great Phoenician nation which was famous for its seagoing traders. They plied the Mediterranean and even went beyond that. We know today that they went around the Pillars of Hercules and the Rock of Gibraltar and into Great Britain, where they obtained tin. They established a colony in North Africa. Tarshish in Spain was founded by these people. They were great colonizers and went a lot farther in their explorations than we used to think they did.

Tyre was a great and proud city. Hiram, king of Tyre, had been a good friend of David and supplied him with building materials. Solomon and Hiram did not get along as well as David and Hiram had. Apparently Hiram was a great king, but the center of Baal worship was there in Tyre and Sidon. A few generations later, Jezebel, the daughter of a king and former priest, married Ahab king of Israel and introduced Baal worship into the northern kingdom. Tyre was destroyed by the Babylonians at the same time Jerusalem was destroyed. Nebuchadnezzar took Tyre.

Therefore thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I am against you, O Tyre, and will cause many nations to come up against you, as the sea causes its waves to come up.” (Ezekiel 26:3)

When God says, “Behold, I am against you,” you can be sure He is against that place. Just as the waves break on the shore, God said, nations would come against Tyre, that great commercial center that had been invincible. The ruins of Tyre stand today as a witness to the accuracy of the Word of God. And if you want to disprove the Word of God, the thing to do is go over there and build a city on that site. God says you won’t.

Also, there is the red-rock city of Petra, a ready-made city. You can get an apartment down there with running water out in front of the apartment. All you have to do is go get it, and you can have that apartment rent-free! Petra is a city which God said would be without inhabitants, and it’s been vacant all these years!
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Inspiration

Let me give another example of fulfilled Scriptures, a very important one, by the way. One evening one of our friends was showing us pictures of his trip around the world. He showed pictures of Israel, and I was interested in a statement he made. When he showed the country around Jericho and Jerusalem, he said, “They call that the land of milk and honey, but I don’t see how they can call it that!” Well, here is something interesting. God said that judgment would come on the land and, friend, that judgment is still on it today. But that wouldn’t end it all.

So that the coming generation of your children who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a far land, would say, when they see the plagues of that land and the sicknesses which the Lord has laid on it: “The whole land is brimstone, salt, and burning; it is not sown, nor does it bear, nor does any grass grow there, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger and His wrath.” All nations would say, “Why has the Lord done so to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?” (Deuteronomy 29:22-24)

How did the land flowing with milk and honey get that way? This is amazing to us! It was foretold! That’s what the stranger says when he goes to that land.

Then people would say [and I’m going to say it too!]: “Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt; for they went and served other gods.” (Deuteronomy 29:25-26)

You probably have seen the pictures of the Isaiah scrolls, and the only value I can see in these Dead Sea scrolls is that they have called attention to the terrain around those caves — oh, it is desolate! If you think Death Valley is bad, you ought to have just a glimpse of the Dead Sea area. My beloved, God says, “Look at it!” And when you see it you will say, “This is not a land of milk and honey!” Of course it’s not. God has judged it. And He judged it because of the idolatry of these people. He said you would ask that question. The Bible tells you the reason: It’s because they disobeyed God, and it is His judgment upon the land. May I say to you, we observe today many prophecies like that which have been fulfilled. To me that is unanswerable proof.

There is also a pragmatic test proving that the Bible is the Word of God, and I think this is a good one. The Scripture itself extends an invitation:

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. (Psalms 34:8)

God invites you to come, to taste and see. The Lord Jesus Christ said to the critics in His day:

If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority. (John 7:17)

Now, my friend, you cannot be a theoretician sitting on the sidelines and know this Book is true. You’ve got to test it. God says so. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. In other words, God says, “I’ve given you a Book. If you want to know whether it’s true or not, then you test it for yourself. It will stand the test.”
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Inspiration

The trouble with these soapbox artists and these agnostic professors today is that most of them have never even read the Bible, and yet they reject it outright. Oh, my friend, how unfair that is! Why not accept God’s invitation?

There have been a number of prominent men who have repudiated the Bible. Do you know why Lew Wallace wrote Ben Hur? He was an agnostic riding on a train one day with a friend, and he was spouting off about how he disbelieved the Bible. His friend said to him, “Lew, you’re a writer. Why don’t you write a book to disprove the Bible since you so sincerely hate it?”

Lew answered, “That’s what I’m going to do,” and he began to study the Old Testament. He said, “I’ll find it full of flaws and contradictions.” He tested it. Do you know what happened? Lew Wallace came to faith in Christ — he became a Christian. And he did write a book, not to disprove the Bible, but to try to get other people interested in it. The book he wrote was Ben Hur. But, my friend, if you want to test the Bible as he did, you don’t need to read Ben Hur. Read the Book Lew Wallace read. The Bible is the Book he read. God says, “Taste of the Lord, and see.”

Why don’t you be honest? Why don’t you try Him out? Why don’t you see whether this Book will work or not?

Another way in which we can know the Bible is the Word of God is through archaeology. At one time I was very much interested in archaeology; however, I’ve given to my daughter most of my books on it. And although I actually wanted to specialize in that field, I no longer preach apologetic sermons. Many young preachers and theological professors stay in that field, and as long as they are immature they will stay there. But we ought to grow up sometime and get away from apologetic sermons — that is, an argumentative defense, trying to prove the Bible is true.

I hadn’t kept up with it too much until I read a certain article, and I’m very much interested in several statements that are here. For instance, it states that back in the Pentateuch, in three different places, it says, “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk” (see Exodus 23:19; Exodus 34:26; and Deuteronomy 14:21). Have you ever wondered about that statement? Archaeology has thrown a lot of light on it. The Ras Shamra letters and tablets that were found have shown that it was a pagan practice to offer to a heathen god an animal in the milk of its mother. Now we know why God said to His people, “Don’t you do that.” It was a pagan practice. And I have heard unbelievers argue about that — “What’s wrong with cooking an animal in its mother’s milk?” There is nothing wrong in it, unless it’s an act of pagan worship, which is the reason it’s prohibited in the Word of God.

Now you find many other things in the Bible that the critics questioned but archaeologists have confirmed. For instance, a few years ago Sargon (mentioned in Isaiah 20) was not known in secular history as a king, but archaeologists found that he was a king. Sargon’s son Sennacherib made his attack on Jerusalem in 701 b.c. and for years the doubters said, “Look, there’s no mention of that in profane history, so it must not be true.” Now they have found a well-preserved prism in Assyrian script that confirms the Word of God. Sennacherib, in describing the siege of Jerusalem says, “Hezekiah himself I shut up like a caged bird in Jerusalem.” Like most kings, he boasted of every other thing he did, but for some reason he did not boast of the outcome of the siege. He just said, “I shut him up in Jerusalem.” But the Bible records the outcome three times. It’s recorded in Isaiah 36 and 37, it’s recorded in 2 Chronicles 32, and it’s recorded in 2 Kings 18 and 19. For years a great many rejected the Bible because they said this event is not in profane history. Well, now it’s also in profane history but, my friend, it was accurate before it was found in profane history. What the Word of God says three times just happens to be accurate.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Inspiration

I have come to the place where I no longer require confirmation by archaeology. I’m not depending on a spadeful of dirt being turned up to satisfy my faith. However, I rejoice in the many spadefuls of dirt. I had the privilege of studying under Dr. Melvin Grove Kyle, who was the greatest Egyptologist at the time of his death. I heard him say once in a lecture in class, “There has never been turned up one spadeful of dirt that has disproved one fact in the Bible.” That’s remarkable, isn’t it? You can’t say that of any other book. That ought to make some people begin to think.

I have another reason for knowing that the Bible is the Word of God, and for me it is the final authority. That is the endorsement of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Now the Pharisees believed that the Old Testament was the Word of God. When our Lord was here, He upbraided the Pharisees on everything under the sun except one thing — He never upbraided them for believing the Bible was the Word of God. Isn’t that interesting? Don’t you know that since He went after the Pharisees regarding so many things that were wrong, if they’d been wrong on the Bible, He would have corrected them? But He didn’t. He agreed with them. This is the one place He was in agreement with the Pharisees, and by not correcting them on it He confirmed the Scriptures.

When Jesus came into His temptation from Satan, how did He meet that? By answering him with the Word of God. And when the devil was talking to Him, the devil never raised any question about the validity of the Word of God. That’s interesting! Why didn’t he say, “You just wait until the great minds of Europe and America come along, and Doctors So and So of Yale. Wait till those fellows come along. They’re going to show that the Bible is not true.” Well, the devil didn’t say that, and the reason he didn’t say it is because these fellows could not, and they have not, and no one else has been able to disprove the accuracy of the Word of God.

May I say to you, again and again our Lord Jesus quoted from the Old Testament. For instance, “When you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet …,” Christ did not finish the sentence by saying, “Well, you know that Daniel was not really written by Daniel, it was written much later.” He didn’t say that. He said “Daniel the prophet.” May I say to you, the Lord Jesus Christ is my final authority. He put His seal of approval upon it, and that’s good enough for me.

My beloved, this which I have presented to you is probably the most controversial subject that there is today: the inspiration of the Scriptures. And may I say that this subject is all-important. Especially would I say this to young preachers. Now I was young once, and I, like you, felt it was important to spend a lot of time proving that the Bible is true. I remember hearing a great preacher a few years ago say that nothing will kill a church like a series of messages proving the Bible is the Word of God. It doesn’t need proving, it needs preaching today!

The new book I purchased on archaeology is only a human book. It may or may not be true. It can be questioned. I myself question two or three of the contributing authors. It is a human book, written by fallible humans. But the Bible is a Book that not only has the facts but examines them. And not only will it appeal to the intellect, but the Holy Spirit has confirmed these things and given to my heart an assurance that this is the Word of God. I like it that way, my beloved.

A young theology professor whom I bumped into at Winona Lake this summer said to me that he was giving a series of messages on proving the Bible is the Word of God. I said, “Are you still doing that? You know that the professor whom you are studying under has been doing it for fifty years! Aren’t you fellows convinced yet?” Then I told him this, “You know, I went through the same machine that you are going through and the same little ordeal. It’s nice to go through it, but I do hope that someday you come to the place where the Holy Spirit is going to give your heart an assurance that it is the Word of God.”

God’s Word will stand all of the acid tests you put to it. Oh, my friend, here is a Book that will still appeal to your intellect. It will appeal to all the mental acumen you’ve got. But it’s also going to appeal to something else. If you examine the facts and examine its truths, then the Holy Spirit is going to make this thing real to you. Then, honestly, you will be surprised how unimportant the shovel of the archaeologist really is to your faith.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
The Doctrine of Origins

In the study of man there are two great themes that we shall consider, both the origin and the nature of man.

Man has been engaged in speculation concerning himself from the very beginning. I’m of the opinion that all of us like to talk about ourselves. Someone has described the boor as a person who talks about himself and won’t give you an opportunity to talk about yourself. So since we do like to talk about ourselves, this subject about the origin of the human family, about where we began, and about our nature — how we are made — is a subject that interests us. Certainly it is very close to us, pertaining to our very being.

We are going to see that there are actually two viewpoints. One is a theory of man and it is called philosophy. The other, while considered a theory by the unbeliever, we perceive to be the truth, that which is stated in the Word of God. Philosophy is a theory, and truth is the Word of God.

Philosophy has attempted to find the origin of man in some other area and some other place than in creation by a Creator. Also the philosophy of man not only disagrees with but is diametrically opposed to the Bible teaching on the nature of man. And we need to face up to that fact and take a closer look at these two subjects.
 
 —  —  —  —  —
The Origin of Man

First of all, we want to look at the origin of man. What do we know about it? Where and how did he begin? As you know, there are several theories that are abroad today, and right now there are four theories that probably encompass the thinking of every person.
 
Naturalistic Evolution

The first one is naturalistic evolution — or you may want to call it biological evolution. Biological evolution has no place for creation. It has no place for God whatsoever. The thing that characterizes it is that it is godless, which is one of the reasons it has been so popular. It has afforded man in the twentieth century an explanation for the origin of man without having to acknowledge God. In fact, it is so popular that most of what is taught in the schools today is from the evolutionary viewpoint. It’s amazing that it is so popular in view of the fact that it can explain very little. It cannot explain religion today. It cannot explain history, and there are many more things, even scientific things, that the theory of evolution cannot explain, and yet today it is so entrenched that some are demanding it be called not a theory but a fact.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
The Doctrine of Origins

Actually, some of the theories which have been advanced are utterly ridiculous and preposterous. In fact, biological evolution has many problems. I wonder if you realize that. Biological evolution, for instance, has the gap theory. In other words, there are certain gaps in biological evolution that evolutionists cannot fill, and it creates a problem for them. And any honest evolutionist who is a scientist will tell you that they do not know how to fill in these gaps now and they accept by theory that sometime in the future they will be able to fill them. This is the reason you hear them speak of “the missing link.” Actually, there are many missing links, not only one, in this theory of evolution, but they feel that somewhere along the line they will be able to fill them in.

Some years ago Dr. Louis Leakey, a British paleontologist (the son of missionaries, by the way), claimed that down in Tanzania he had found something he felt could fill in one of these gaps. He was certain that this was the connecting link between South African ape-men and true men. He found a skull that he called the “nutcracker skull” because the teeth in it were so set and were in such good condition that the fellow could crack a nut. And the amazing thing is, he didn’t find an entire skull, he found only part of a skull. Well, we have had theories like that before, and since we have heard no more of this one since 1961, I guess the scientific world didn’t fall for it.

The origin of life is a real problem for the evolutionist. I have several clippings about a whole crew of scientists working on the problem of how life originated. You see, it’s one thing to trace back and claim this came from that and that came from the other thing, but where did the first thing come from? You’ve got to go back to a place where life started.

Now how did it begin? Any honest evolutionist will tell you, “We haven’t solved that problem yet; we don’t know how life began.” Many scientists are working in the field of theoretical science, attempting to come forward with the answer to that particular problem. I remember a British scientist who believed that mankind came from seaweed. He advanced his theory as being really a sensible solution. So, my friend, when you go down to the beach now, and you see some seaweed there, you ought to be careful how you treat it because you could have evolved from it!

Well, if you think that’s ridiculous, listen to this. I tuned in a television program during the summer on this matter of man exploring in space, and a young scientist out of Massachusetts Institute of Technology was trying to explain why they wanted to get to other planets. He said, “We do not know how life began. But it looks like it might be plausible that millions of years ago some intelligent prehistoric creature came to this earth, he just stopped off, camped here for the night, and left his garbage. And man came out of the garbage can!”

Honestly, I thought I’d tuned in a comedy program! I was waiting for everybody to laugh, and I found that I was the only one laughing. The man was serious! And that’s not all. He continued by saying that what we need to do is to go to some of these other planets and leave our garbage cans. May I say to you, what audacity, what arrogance of man, thinking he can go to another planet and propagate our race over again! I think we’d better leave man on this little earth and not let him track his sin all over God’s universe.

These are actually theories that are put forth by intelligent folk today. Now let me just say that there have been other theories of the past that were in their day scientific, and many intelligent people accepted them; and there were others who pointed out that they contradicted the Bible. For instance, there was a time when intelligent men accepted certain scientific views of the Ptolemaic theory, which says that the earth is at the center with the sun, moon, and stars revolving around it. These were intelligent men like Augustine — men with amazing I.Q.s. But, my friend, today that theory has been exploded and is out. I do not know of an intelligent person holding it now.
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