This Book Will Change Your Life: Problems
April 2, 2023
1 Thessalonians 2:13 And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.
Miraculously Accurate Prophecies
325 Biblical Prophecies – nothing comes even close!!!
Hundreds of Years between prophecy and fulfillment
Daniel 9:25 Year Jesus was born
Micah 5:2 Bethlehem
Isaiah 7:11-14 Born to a virgin
Isaiah 9:6 Called God, he will be forever king
Zechariah 9:9 Ride in on a donkey as a king
Ps. 22:16-18 Crucified, clothes gambled over
Isaiah 53 Buried in a rich person’s grave, come back to life, many children
The Bible is God’s Words
Posture and Understanding
Open the Bible with a listening heart
1 Cor. 2:11-12 No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.
Understand how to read the Bible
Read the Bible like any other book, in it’s context
Each question has an answer
Violence Commanded/ God’s Goodness?
Deut. 7:1-2 When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you— and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally.
God warns/ God judges
Ezekiel 33:11 As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.
God has the right to, and is the Judge
In the West we like God being loving but not being the Judge
Romans 11:22 Notice how God is both kind and severe
I would rather consider only the kindness of God, but by doing so I would construct my own image of God instead of relaying on God’s self-revelation – Philip Yancy
Matt. 10:28 Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Outdated Morality?
John 10:10 The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.
We should never chuck faith over a question
Every question has an answer
If I were the Devil, one of my first aims would be to stop people from digging into the Bible. J.I. Packer
The Word of God Daily
Come to it with a listening heart and understanding mind