A Challenge To Any
Thinking Person
By Charles C. Ryrie, Ph.D.
You walk into a restaurant
and order a meal. It is prepared out of sight and served by people you don’t
know. Without hesitation, you eat it and enjoy it. And, without thinking, you
have exercised faith.
You get a prescription from
your doctor – written in handwriting you can’t read, containing words you can’t
pronounce! You take it to a pharmacist you don’t know who puts pills or tablets
into a container with instructions to the effect of “Take one every four
hours.” You obediently do what you are told. Then days later, hopefully, your
illness is gone. Again, you have exercised faith.
When you mail a letter, you put
faith in the postal service. When you fly in a plane, you put your faith in the
airline and the professional skills of the flight and maintenance crews.
Every day brings dozens of such
opportunities to put faith to work. The same could be said about your
relationship with God.
In that broad area we call
“religion,” faith is always an essential ingredient.
If one claims to be an
atheist, that has to be done by
faith. Only faith can conclude there is no God. No one can gather enough facts
to prove that conclusion.
If one claims to be an
agnostic – saying that we cannot know
for sure about God – this requires faith. Such a person must believe that we
cannot know that there is a God; he cannot provide any evidence to prove it.
If one claims there is only
an impersonal power or force or god
in the universe, such a claim is based on faith. We all see evidence of some
power in the universe, but to say that this is the only kind of “god” requires
faith.
If a person looks within
to find satisfaction for his or her religious or spiritual longings, that person
has to believe that whatever he or she finds within is all that there is.
However, “the temple within” at which this person bows and worships may not be
real or true.
The point is this: In the
practice of religion, everybody exercises faith.
So does the Christian. A
Christian believes that the true God exists, and that this true God is the God
of the Bible. The true God is the one that the Bible describes to us. But, in
the final analysis, I have to believe that. I really cannot prove it.
THE EVIDENCES FOR FAITH
Various beliefs can offer
supporting evidence that their particular view is correct. But
notice where these different ideas originate.
The belief that there is no God
(atheism) originates in the minds of those who believe this. The belief
that we cannot know if there is a God or not (agnosticism) also
originates in the minds of those who hold this idea. The belief that there is some
greater Force in the universe comes from the minds of those who believe this.
However, belief in the true God is based on something outside myself: God’s disclosure of Himself in the Bible.
How can we test the reliability
of our minds to give us the truth about God? The mind does think accurately
much of the time, and it has instincts which are usually reliable. But the
catch is that this does not happen all of the time. Perhaps our minds could be
right in what they tell us about there being no God or some kind of god. But it
is equally possible that they can be wrong. Even what we consider to be good
instincts sometimes prove to be wrong instincts. Our minds can be very reliable
and they can also be very unreliable. Which is the case when they tell us about
religious ideas?
What about the Bible on which Christians base their belief in the true
God? Can it be tested as to its reliability? If so, how?
The Bible records many
predictions about future events. If we found that every single prediction that
we tested came to pass, that would be strong evidence that other parts of the
Bible are true also.
For the atheist, the agnostic,
the believer in a great Force, or the person who worships at his or her own
inner temple, prophesying with even a moderate degree of success is impossible.
All such predictions are generated from the person’s mind or instincts. They
are predicated on trends or past experience or just plain guesswork. Even
“prophets” whose forecasts appear regularly in tabloids at best only hit one or
two predictions, and often those are couched in vague language that could have
several meanings. On the other hand, if a prophet in Bible times did not
predict with 100% accuracy, he was to be put to death.
TEST THE BIBLE
Let’s test some predictions in
the Bible. As you look at them you will notice that they are not groping generalizations
put in vague language but are detailed descriptions of the future. Though many
examples of prophecies could be cited, I will focus on some predictions about
the life and death of Jesus Christ.
1.
The prophet Micah
predicted Jesus’ birthplace 700 years before Jesus was born. Micah did not say
it would be in some little town somewhere in southern Palestine. He said it
would occur in a town called Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). There is no way that
anyone can say that someone wrote this prophecy in the name of Micah after it
occurred, for when Herod asked the priests where Christ was to be born they
quoted Micah’s prophecy as the answer (Matt. 2:6).
That this prediction would
prove true was most unlikely, for during most of Mary’s pregnancy she and
Joseph lived in Nazareth in northern Palestine, not in Bethlehem in southern
Palestine. But a Roman tax decree brought them to Bethlehem during the last
days of Mary’s pregnancy because Joseph was of the line of King David, and
Bethlehem was David’s hometown. It is impossible that chance could have brought
all these factors together at the right time. Only God could do it.
2.
The prophet
Malachi, 400 years before Christ, said that Christ would be announced by a “forerunner”.
John the Baptist fulfilled this exactly as predicted (Mal. 3:1 and Matt.
3:1-3).
3.
Many details of
Christ’s ministry were predicted in the Old Testament. These details were fulfilled
in Jesus’ ministry: Its location (predicted in Isa. 9:1, 2 and reported as
fulfilled in Matt. 4:13-16), its purpose (Isa. 61:1 and Lk. 4:16-18),
its accompaniment by miracles (Isa. 35:5, 6 and Matt. 11:4, 5), its
inclusion of Gentiles (Isa. 42:6 and Lk. 2:32), and its rejection (Isa.
53:1-5 and Jn. 1:11).
4.
Heaped on top of
these are many additional predictions about the death of Christ. It may
be possible to predict the place and even the approximate time of the death of
someone who is dying, but to predict accurately the death of someone who
wouldn’t even be born until hundreds of years later is beyond human
possibility. But that is exactly what occurred.
The prophets of the Old
Testament predicted that Jesus would be scourged and spit on (Isa. 50:6 and the fulfillment in Matt.
26:67), that He would be given vinegar to drink (Psa. 69:21 and Matt. 27:34, 48), that His hands and feet would be
pierced (Psa. 22:16 and Lk. 23:33),
that He would agonize with thirst (Psa.
22:15 and Jn. 19:28), that His garments would be distributed when He died (Psa. 22:18 and Jn. 19:23, 24), that no
bone would be broken (Psa. 34:20 and Jn.
19:33-36), and that He would be buried with the rich (Isa. 53:9 and Matt. 27:57-60).
5.
Jesus claimed
to be a prophet, and He was. To cite
only one area, He predicted details of His own death specifically and accurately.
He said that He would die in Jerusalem, that His death would be instigated by
the leaders of the Jewish people (Matt.
16:21), that He would die by crucifixion, and that three days later He would
come back to life (Matt. 20:19). No
one could do this in such detail months before he actually died unless he was
truly a prophet.
Could these predictions have
happened by chance? If so, then they would not validate the Bible. If, however,
they could not possibly happen by chance, then we ought to take notice of what
the Bible says in other matters, since it has proved itself to be reliable to
the testable area of fulfilled prophecies.
FLIPPING A COIN
If you take a coin and flip it
twice, there are four possible results: It will land heads both times, or tails
both times, or heads then tails, or tails then heads. So the chance of its
landing heads both times is one out of four. Or, to put it another way, if four
people each flipped a coin two times, one of them could be expected by the laws
of chance to come up with two heads in a row. The chance of getting heads three
times in three flips is only one in eight. Or, if eight people each flipped a
coin, one could be expected to come up with three heads in a row. One person in
16 could expect four heads in an uninterrupted sequence.
For just one person to get 20
heads in an unbroken sequence, it would require more
than a million people flipping; for an uninterrupted run of 30 heads, it would
take more than a billion people.
Now think of each of 30
prophecies about the life of Christ as a coin toss, and each accurate prophecy
as a flip that comes up heads. If every person living when Christ was born (fewer
than one billion) was to have made 30 predictions concerning Christ’s life,
the laws of probability say that not one of them would have scored 100%
accurate.
But there are more than 30
predictions about the life of Jesus. In addition, there are many other
prophecies recorded in the Bible that have already been fulfilled. The total
number is more than 100.
The probability of 100
prophecies being fulfilled by chance is less than one in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
– the same as 100 heads in 100 tosses. Such a number is incomprehensible, so we
need a comparison to help understand how large it is.
Astronomers tell us that there
are 200 billion stars in the Milky Way. Imagine that on each of these 200 billion
stars live four billion people. The population of all the stars of the Milky
Way would add up to a figure with 20 zeroes. If all these people were flipping
coins, not one of them would come up with 100 heads in 100 tosses by chance. Or
if all of them would try to predict 100 things about the future, not one of them
would score 100%. Yet more than 100 prophecies made in the Bible have
already been of fulfilled just as predicted.
If it wasn’t chance or luck
that guided the prophecies of the Bible, what was it? The only other option is
that there is a supernatural Being who did it. Man’s mind, though often
brilliant, could not accomplish it with total accuracy; no impersonal Force
could do it, for force does not even have a mind; only a living, personal, all-knowing
God could … and He did.
Since the Bible passes this
very difficult test in the area of predictions, would it not be wise to listen
to what Christ and the Bible say about other matters?
THE NEXT LOGICAL STEP
We all like to think that we
can handle whatever comes our way. And much of the time we can. But sometimes
there comes into our lives situations we cannot control or cope with. A bad
business circumstance, a problem in the family, a serious illness, and – the
thing no one likes to think about – what happens when we die?
Problems in this life are
temporary, but death is permanent, final. We all must face it, sometime or
another.
Many think death ends it all. Yet down deep there remains the nagging thought that
probably it doesn’t. It ends something, but not everything. Even if one hopes
it ends everything, what if that conclusion is wrong?
Jesus, the proven prophet, said
that there is life after death. He once told about two men who died. One was
rich and the other, named Lazarus, was poor. The story
is recorded in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 16, verses 19-31.
When the rich man died, he
found himself in Hades. He was conscious; he was in torment; he could remember
events from his life on earth; he realized he could have no second chance;
he understood that he could not communicate with those still living on earth,
but he wanted them (his five brothers in particular) to know and believe
the truth so that they would avoid the torment and pain he was in. On the other
hand, the poor man, after he died, found himself in a place of bliss and contentment.
Jesus was saying some very
basic and important facts about life after death. If He did not know what
happens after we die, who does?
The Lord promised His followers
that when they died they would go to homes in heaven He would prepare for them.
They would be with Him in heaven and be with Him forever. You can read about
this in the Gospel of John, chapter 14, verses 1-6.
But how can a person know with
any certainty what his or her destiny will be after death? In the story of the
rich man and Lazarus, the Lord said that you must believe the message of the
Bible. In the account where He promised heaven to His followers, He said you
must believe what He taught – that He is the only way to heaven.
THE GOOD NEWS
Just what is that message? It
is a message of forgiveness, of hope, and of certainty. It is a message about
death – Jesus’ death in our place as a payment for our wrongs because, as the
Bible tells us, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom.
3:23).
But how can that help? Look at
what He said.
As to why He came to earth, the
Lord Jesus said it was “to give His life a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28).
Ransom means “payment”. When Jesus died He made full payment for sin. And He did
it as our substitute. That is the meaning of “for.” Literally it means “in the
place of.”
Just before He died He told His
disciples that His blood would be poured out for the “forgiveness of sins” (Matt.
26:28).
The death of Jesus Christ pays
for our sins; His death substitutes for us; His death forgives us. His
resurrection assures us He has the power to save us.
But, you
may be asking, how can I be sure that I am forgiven?
Let’s eavesdrop on a
conversation the Lord had with an intelligent and religious rabbi named
Nicodemus. Jesus was very specific in talking to this inquisitive man. He said,
“You must be born again” (Jn. 3:7).
When Nicodemus did not comprehend, the Lord explained that Nicodemus must
believe that Jesus Christ could give him eternal life (3:11-21).
To illustrate this, the Lord
reminded Nicodemus of an incident in Jewish history which is recorded in the
Old Testament (Num. 21:4-9). The Jewish people had begun to complain
about their difficult circumstances, and as a punishment God sent venomous
snakes whose bites killed some of the people. The Jewish people quickly
acknowledged that they were wrong to gripe and they begged God to take away the
snakes. God heard their cries and provided a way to be healed from the fatal
snake bites. He told Moses, their leader, to make a bronze image of a snake, set
it on a pole and tell the people that whoever would look on that image would
not die. And it worked. Those who looked lived, and those who did not look –
for whatever reason – died.
Being sorry for their sin was
not enough to save them. Those who were bitten had to look, and in looking,
believe that doing so would reverse the consequences of the bites.
Using this Old Testament event,
the Lord told Nicodemus that He would be lifted up (as He was eventually on
the cross when He was crucified) like the bronze serpent was, and that
whoever would believe in Him would have eternal life.
SAVING FAITH IS ESSENTIAL
We started this discussion by
looking at the commonness of faith and the need of faith in many areas of life.
Faith is absolutely necessary for eternal life.
But faith is only as good as
its object, the thing or person you put your faith in. You can believe as
sincerely as possible that a broken chair will not collapse under you if you
sit on it, but it will. The object of your faith – the broken chair – is
useless for sitting on. But if you try another chair, one which you have
examined and which looks solid, and believe that it will hold you, your faith,
intelligently placed, will reward you with a secure
seat.
You can examine all the
religions in this world. But don’t fail to examine what Jesus Christ said.
Such an examination ought to give you confidence that, if you believe Him, He
will do what He promised to do. Jesus Christ promised that the person who
believes in Him, as Savior, as Ransomer, as Forgiver, will have eternal life.
Someday you will die physically, but you can know for sure that when you do,
you will be in heaven forever (1 Jn. 5:13).
Eternal life is a gift, not a
reward for doing something. When someone offers you a gift you have three options:
Take it, reject it, or ignore it. Jesus offers you the free gift of forgiveness
and eternal life. You have those same three options.
If you are saying that you
would like to take the gift of salvation but are not sure how to do that, let
me suggest saying this: “Dear Lord Jesus, I believe You
died for me, and I now accept and receive Your free gift of forgiveness and
eternal life.”
Will you do this? Will you take this step of faith? It will make all
the difference in your life and in your life to come.
The Bible says:
“For
God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him
should not perish, but have eternal life.” (Jn. 3:16)
“Jesus
said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth and the life, no one comes to the
Father, but through Me.’ ” (Jn. 14:6)
“Christ
died for our sins… He was buried… He was raised on the third day, according to
the Scriptures… He appeared to Peter, then… to more than 500… (1 Cor.
15:3-6)
“For
by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is
the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.” (Eph.
2:8, 9)