A Very Encouraging and Positive Report on a Great Book By An Awesome Author<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
 
By Brannon Howse
 
 
 
This is not an article about the latest liberal and heretical book. This is not an article on a pastor that has gone astray of Biblical truth. Such articles are necessary so we can be sure not to be taken captive by false teaching. However, this article was written to encourage and inspire you, to uplift you, and to challenge you. This article is about a remarkable book that was written by an awesome author. This author only wrote one book and it is a major best-seller for years running.
The remarkable book is the Bible and it was written by God. There is literally none other like it. It was written over a period of 1,600 years, and there were more than 40 different authors from three continents (Africa, Asia, and <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Europe), who wrote in three different languages. Despite the varied backgrounds of the writers, Scripture tells a consistent story from beginning to end.
One way we know the Bible can be trusted is that it is full of "predictive prophecy." Predictive prophecy occurs when the Bible tells about things that are going to happen years in advance of when the events actually occur, and then the whole prediction comes true. Scripture records many such prophecies. Take the nation of Israel, for example. The Bible predicted Israel would become a nation again after centuries of the Jewish people having no place for their own country. Israel had not been a nation for more than 2,000 years, but in 1948, it became a nation just as predicted in the Old Testament:
 
• Ezekiel 45:12 even tells what kind of money would be used in the new Israel. Modern Jewish money is called the shekel.
 
• Ezekiel 37:21 explains that the Jewish people would return to Israel from all over the world-just as they have.
 
• Zephaniah 3:9 foretells that the official language of Israel will be Hebrew, and today, newspapers in Israel are printed in Hebrew.
 
• Ezekiel 36:26–35 and Isaiah 27:6 prophesy that the desert of Israel will become like a garden. Today an Israeli farmer, working desert land, produces four to six times as much food as an average farmer in America. Israel actually sends large amounts of fruit and flowers to other countries-all from a desert!
 
• Ezekiel 37:10 says the nation of Israel will have a great army. During the last 50 years, Israel's army, air force, and intelligence agency have proven to be among the best trained and most powerful in the world.
 
The Bible also makes predictions about things other than Israel. For instance, Daniel 12:4 suggests that technology will produce a huge increase in knowledge, speed of transportation, and worldwide communications. Consider these examples of progress:
 
• Experts estimate that in the last 50 years, there has been more scientific progress than in the previous 5,000 years!
 
• High rates of speed? Before 1830, people traveled only by horse, foot, or sailboat. From 1830 to 1890, we invented steam engines, which gave us trains and ships. From 1890 to today, people have developed cars and jets, as well as spacecraft capable of traveling to the moon. We have even landed unmanned spacecrafts on the planet Mars.
 
• You see examples of worldwide communications every day. On television, you can watch live events taking place on the other side of the earth, and you can talk on the phone or e-mail people that live thousands of miles away.
 
Archeology provides further evidence for the veracity of the Bible. Archeologists have made more than 25,000 discoveries related to the Old Testament and found exactly what the Bible talks about in every case.
Although some people claim the Bible isn't accurate because it has been copied so many times by different people, this amounts to a smokescreen. Between 1947 and 1956, handwritten copies of every book of the Old Testament except one were found in caves in Israel (the Dead Sea Scrolls). These copies of Bible books reflect the same thing we read in our Bibles today.
Similarly, the New Testament is the most documented work of antiquity. Although there are no original versions of New Testament books, there are more manuscripts of the New Testament than of any other ancient book ever written-24,286 to be exact. Like the Dead Sea Scrolls, these copies prove that the Bible of today is just as it was originally written 2,000 years ago.
So the Christian angle on things begins with a belief in God-a theistic worldview-based on the unassailable authenticity of Scripture. The God we believe in is the One described in the Bible. Other viewpoints differ on this central truth. Cosmic Humanism (also known as New Age), for instance, believes in pantheism, the belief that everything is God. It (not He) is a force you can use to your advantage through the power of your mind (the "force" in Star Wars is a fictional, but logical, extension of this idea). Yet another alternative is Secular Humanism-the belief that there is no God. In this view, people are the highest order of creature.
Christian theism says there are both spiritual and natural worlds. At the other extreme, by contrast, Secular Humanists believe in naturalism, which means they think all that exists is the natural world. There is no spiritual side.
A Christian believes people are in need of redemption, and that can happen only through repenting of sins, believing in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and accepting Him as Lord and Savior. A Cosmic Humanist believes mankind is saved through reincarnation-the belief that a person's soul passes repeatedly from one body to another until his or her good deeds (good karma) outweigh bad deeds (bad karma). A Secular Humanist believes people die, and that's it-there is nothing beyond the grave.
Christians believe the world was created by God through His spoken word and that He is the source of all truth. He has always existed and is the Source of all creation. A Secular Humanist believes in naturalistic Darwinian evolution, that the cosmos came about at random.
While Christianity holds that God is the source of all truth (Jesus called Himself "the truth"), both forms of humanism believe truth is relative, not a fixed reference point. Scripture teaches that people have a soul that will live forever in either heaven or hell, depending on whether or not they have accepted the atonement of Christ, because they are accountable to God's absolute truth. A Christian believes mankind is born with a sin nature but that each person has a free will and can choose to be a slave to sin or a servant of Jesus Christ.
A worldview impacts every area of life. Christians are to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, strength, and mind, and it is each person's responsibility to sharpen his or her mind to think and live according to a Christian worldview.
 
This article was adapted from Brannon's book; Put Your Beliefs To The Test. Click here for full details or to order.