CORROBORATION OF THE WORD OF GOD

 

Dr. W. A. Criswell

 

12/08/57

 

1 Thessalonians 2:13

 

Now, the text is as it is: “in truth the Word of God.”  The whole verse:

For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. 

Now, the first thing we shall do is this.  There is a decided consciousness on the part of the apostle and the prophet that the message he delivered and the word that he spake was the Word and message of God.  That's illustrated here in this text: “When ye received the Word we preached, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God.”  Paul identifies the gospel message that he preaches with the Word of God.  This is the Word of God, the message that Paul is delivering, the gospel of the Son of God. 

Now, Paul avows that time and time again.  For example, in the 1 Corinthian letter, the eleventh chapter and the twenty-third verse, he says: “For I received of the Lord Jesus that which also I delivered unto you.”

“For I have received of the Lord Jesus,” that is, he did not originate it, nor did he think it up, nor was it of him.  But, the thing that he delivered was something he had received. 

He says the same thing in the 1 Corinthian letter, the fifteenth chapter and the third verse: “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that... .”  Then, he declares the message that he received by direct revelation from God. 

In the letter to the churches of Galatia, in the first chapter, he says: “Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which ye have received, let him be accursed.”  Or, he says: “This gospel I received, not from men, neither was I taught it by men, but by revelation of Jesus Christ.” 

The message Paul delivers, the gospel that he preaches, he received directly by revelation from Christ Himself.  And the message that he preaches and the word that he writes is, in the words of my text, “In very truth the Word of God.”

Now, that same thing that you find in the Apostle Paul, you find in all of the writers of the Bible: the apostles and the prophets.  They were conscious that they were delivering the very Word and will and message of God.  It says in the second chapter of the Book of Acts that the new converts continued in the apostles' doctrine, in the didachē—in the teaching, in the Word of God.  And that didachē, that teaching, that doctrine was written down.  And I have it here in my hands: the Word of God.             

For example, the Apostle Peter said in the first chapter of his first second letter:

I will endeavor after my departure that ye may be able to bring these things to remembrance. 

For we have not followed cunningly devised tales, when we made known unto you the truth of Christ… the majesty of glory.

He says there that, before he dies, he's going to write down these great revelations in Jesus.  And you call that the Gospel of Mark, which is the Gospel of Peter. 

Then, he continues.  Listen:

We have also a more sure word of prophecy... . 

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. 

Peter says there, “This message that we have received from God, I'm going to write it down before my departure.”  So, these apostles wrote down for us, in the Gospels and in the Epistles, the revelation that they received.  The Apostle Paul, by direct revelation from Christ in heaven; the Apostle Peter, standing at the feet of the Lord in the days of His flesh—they wrote out—and, it's our New Testament—the gospel of Christ, which Paul says is the Word of God. 

Now, the Apostle Paul says that these prophets also—and, he says the more sure word of prophecy—is the real authentication and affirmation of the truth of the gospel message.  He says those men who wrote back there in the Old Testament, that they also were conscious, that they were writing and speaking the immutable, infallible Word of the living God.  They were moved by the Holy Spirit—spake not of themselves.  The word and message they delivered was not something they invented or that originated with them, but it was a word and message they got from God.  And the Word that they write and that I hold here in my hand is the unchanging and immutable and fixed Word of God. 

Now, I'm going to take three as an example.  First, Moses:

And God said unto Moses, Come up unto the Lord... And Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the judgments. 

And Moses wrote all of the words of the Lord.

Moses heard them from God Himself and Moses wrote them down and I have them here in my hand.  “And Moses took the Book of the Covenant”—that's what he calls it after he wrote it down—“and read it in the audience of the people.” 

“And Moses took blood and sprinkled it on the people” and sprinkled it on the book.  The people and the book were, alike, the possession of God. 

Not only that, but the Lord said:

Moses, come up to Me again and I'll give thee tables of stone and a law and commandments which I have written, that thou mayest teach them to the people.

So, old Moses felt that the thing that he wrote down was the actual Word of God.  He received it from the Almighty Himself. 

Now, let's take another one: Jeremiah.  “And it came to pass”—in the thirty-sixth chapter of Jeremiah—

And it came to pass in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, that the Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah saying,

Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee, from the day I spake unto thee...from the days of Josiah, even unto this day... 

Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord. 

And I have it here in my hand.  He wrote them upon a roll of a book. 

And Baruch the son of Neriah did according to all that Jeremiah the prophet commanded him, reading in the book the words of the Lord in the Lord's house. 

I take just one other.  They're all alike.  Thus said the Lord—in the second chapter of the Book of Ezekiel—“And the Lord said unto me, Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee.  And the Spirit entered into me.” 

What did Peter say?  “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.”

And the Spirit entered into me when He spake unto me, and set me upon my feet, that I heard Him that spake unto me.

And the Lord said, Thou shall speak My words unto them, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear... 

Moreover He said unto me, Son of man, eat that thou findest; eat this roll... 

So I opened my mouth, and He caused me to eat this roll.

And He said unto me, Son of man, cause thy stomach to eat, and fill thyself with this roll that I give thee. 

That is the Word of God.  And he ate it and stood up and delivered the Word of God to the people.  And I have that Word here in my hand. 

Now, we can continue that all night long.  I am just illustrating the fact that these men, holy and set aside, the prophet of the Old Testament and the apostle of the New Testament—that, in each one, he was conscious of the fact that the word he received and the message delivered was of heaven; it was of God.  It came from the courts of glory itself.  And I have it here in my hand so I can look at it.  I can examine it.  I can read it for myself. 

These men say this is the Word of God.  These men say they received it from heaven.  These men say they are delivering a message, not that they invented or that originated with them, but that they received it from God and they wrote it down.  And I have it here in my hand so I can look at it.  I can examine it.  I can verify it or I can prove that it is not the Word of God—it is fallible, it is the origination and invention of man.             

So, I shall pick it up and look at it, this thing that they say they got from heaven itself.  Well, any man who will examine that Book with an unbiased mind will stand in amazement and in wonder at what he reads.  You can hardly believe that you could hold in your hand the miracle, the unbelievable wonder of what has been written in the pages of this sacred, sacred volume. 

For example—we're going to look at it and just see for ourselves—For example, I am amazed at its scientific accuracy, written thousands and thousands of years before the word “science” was invented, before men ever heard of a microscope or a telescope, before logarithms and weights and balances and chemicals and the laws of astronomy and physics and chemistry were even known or heard of.  These men, speaking by the revelation of God, yet speaking scientifically, accurately, thousands of years before any science was named or known.  

Now, if I had about five weeks, we'd start again in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis.  Well, I preached from that chapter about six months and then didn't get good and started, just taking all that we know about science and finding everything we've discovered, finding it exactly said back there in the Bible, thousands of years before a man ever thought it, before he ever discovered it. 

Now, I'm just going to take two passages as illustrative.  Look at this unusual verse in the twenty-sixth chapter of Job and the verth verse.  Listen: “God stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.”  What an amazing, scientifically accurate statement. 

He says two things there in that one little verse: “God stretcheth out the north over the empty place.”  There is, in the north, in the heaven of the heavens, there is a vast empty space.  Fathomless abyss of the night, as though the universe of the worlds had come to an end.  Up there in the north, a vast, vast emptiness, an abyss of unfathomable blackness and night. 

“He stretcheth out the north over the empty place and hangeth the earth upon nothing.”  When Job wrote that sentence, the latest scientific, accepted facts of the day were this: That the earth was held up by a great giant, and that giant stood on a platform of the backs of big elephants.  And the elephants stood on the great big gigantic tortoise.  And what the tortoise stood on, nobody ever said! 

That was the latest science.  That was the accepted explanation of the world.  But, when Job wrote, he said, “God hangeth the earth on nothing.”  Thousands of years ago he wrote that. 

And I just take one other.  We could be here all night long with just looking at this.  In the fortieth chapter of the prophet Isaiah, in the twenty-second verse, Isaiah says, “It is He”—talking about who's like unto the Lord God—“it is He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth.” 

When Isaiah wrote that, then for a thousand years after, the latest scientific theory of the world was that it was flat and square.  And if you'd got to the edge, you'd fall off.  That's the reason, when they gathered around Columbus, they said, “You better not go out there.  In the middle of that ocean is a great monster.  And when he breathes—he's taking a breath—the tides of the sea come up on the seashore.  And when he exhales his breath, the waters of the sea go back.  Great big monster: and, if you go out there in the middle of the sea, you'll go right into his gut.” 

That's what they said.  That was science in that day.  And the world was flat in that day.  But, Isaiah said, “A thousand years, it is He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth.”  It's round, Isaiah said. 

Well, we haven't time for that.  We're looking at the Word of the Lord.  Sir Herschel said—one of the great astronomers of all time—he said, “It seems that every discovery of man is for the purpose, more and more and more strongly, to confirm the accuracy of the sacred Scriptures.” 

And it seems that way.  Wherever a man digs in the earth, wherever a spade is placed in the soil, wherever they search among the ash heaps of ancient Egypt, dig down into the mounds of Tyre and Nineveh, Babylon and Palestine, there are they on earth, the corroborated testimony of the infallible Word of God.             

For example, just in comparatively recent years, the fourteenth chapter in the Book of Genesis, where you have listed the five kings under Chedorlaomer, they said that's just historical trash—no authenticity in it.  But, the shovel and the spade, digging down in the earth, has unearthed corroborated testimony.  And every syllable of the fourteenth chapter of Genesis is exactly as it is written in the Book. 

Why, I can remember when the scholars and the scientists said, “The Hittites, the Hittites, ha, ha, the Hittites.”  They wanted to see Hittites.  But, the Bible is full of Hittites.  Did you know that?  All through the Old Testament is the Hittites.  Well, they hadn't seen a Hittite.  You hadn't seen a Hittite, had you?  You don't know what a Hittite looks like.  You don't know what a Hittite looks like. 

Well, they never had seen a Hittite either.  So, the scientists came to the conclusion there weren't any Hittites, that it's just a fabrication of the Word of God. 

Now, may the Lord wash out my mouth once again.  In Life magazine, about a year ago, remember—in Life Magazine, about a year ago, they had a whole issue on the Hittite Empire.  Do you remember that, all of you people who read that trash?  They had a whole issue.  They had a whole issue on the Hittite Empire.  A great empire had been on earth, just like it says in the Word of the Lord. 

Why, it hasn't been any while when those infidels and those higher critics were laughing at Sergius Paulus.  Luke said he was the proconsulate of Cyprus when Paul went there to preach the gospel—Sergius Paulus.  And they laughed and scoffed.  Sergius Paulus: never was anybody that lived like that, much less was a proconsul of Cyprus. 

That little humble, homely spade, digging down into the ruins of the ancient cities of Cyprus, dug up coins.  And on those pieces of money, was stamped the image and the name of Sergius Paulus. 

And if I had about five days here, we'd just go through a thousand instances like that where they used to laugh and scoff and ridicule.  But, the spade digging down into the earth, the archaeologist found it to be exactly according to the Word of God.

Those trenches of Tel el-Amarna, those letters of the Rosetta Stone, that black, but speaking, face of the Moabite Stone, those great cuneiform inscriptions on the Behistun Rocks.  All of those things they dig up of the papyri in Egypt, the palimpsest cracked and covered and crinkled and old, down into the earth from the very heavens, from the depth of the sea, rising testimony to the infallible, immutable and accurate Word of the living God. 

Why, I can remember when I first started out in this.  I can remember when the critics, the higher critics, were saying the Gospel of John, why, that was a creation of the Christian community 200, 300 years after Jesus.  And lo and behold, throw the pigeon down into the ash heaps of Egypt, found a papyrus quoting the Gospel of John as the sacred Word of God.  And that papyrus was written between 100 and 125 A.D., a good hundred years before the higher critics said John's Gospel had even been composed.  All of these things verify the Word of the Lord. 

Now we come to the great, great authentication and verification.  So far as I know, the only faith and the only religion that has any prophecy, what is to come to pass, is in the pages of this Book I hold in my hand.  And, there's a certain reason for that.  A man can't prophesy.  A man can't predict what will happen.  A man doesn't know. 

But, God knows.  He sees the end from the beginning.  And, this Book is a book of prophecy.  And it tells things that are to come to pass thousands and centuries of years before they are fulfilled, the Book that I hold in my hand: God's Book.    

All right.  Let's look at it.  Let's take just a few of the things about the Lord Jesus.  I don't know, when God said the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head, thousands and thousands and thousands of years before, God said He shall be born of a woman, of the seed of the woman, a virgin Son, a good 2,000 years almost, before Christ, Israel—Jacob lay dying.  And he turned to the fourth boy.  He rejected Reuben.  He rejected Simeon.  He rejected Levi.  He turned to the fourth boy, Judah, and he said, “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh comes.” 

That was a prophecy, almost 2,000 years before it was fulfilled, that Judah, the tribe of Judah, should be attacked until the government—until Jesus should come.  A man doesn't know what's going to happen six days in advance, much less 90 days, much less a year.  But, here is a man of God, picking out his fourth son and prophesying 2,000 years in advance what's going to happen. 

Take another one.  Micah stands up 700 years.  How old is America?  1776 to 1957—not 200 years yet.  Ah, here's a man who stands up, and 700 years before the event, he says, “And He's going to be born in that little town of Bethlehem”—the prophecy of the Word of the Lord. 

And Zechariah stands up, and 500 years before the event, he says how he's going into the city of Jerusalem, “riding on an ass, even the foal of an ass,” humble.  Not on a tractor, gentle and sweet.   That is, dominion shall be from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth.  Why, when I read in the Book—I can hardly believe it—thousands of years in advance, prophesy what's going to come to pass. 

Now, we could be here all night long about this.  When you read in those prophets and what they're saying and how it was fulfilled, ah, it's a miracle.  When Ezekiel stood up, in the twenty-sixth chapter of his book, Tyre was in its glory.  And, Ezekiel lifted up his voice and said, “Thus saith the Lord God, and Tyre shall be like the top of a straight rock.”  And, 250 years later—250 years later—that's a good 70 years longer than the United States is old—250 years later, Alexander the Great came and he built a causeway from the land to the island of Tyre. 

Tyre had never been subdued.  It had never been captured.  It was impregnable, they said.  And Alexander the Great stormed the city and tore it down and destroyed it and made it like the top of a straight rock.  And the prophet said, “And it shall be that way forever.”  And it is to this day and it will always be that way. 

When Nahum stood up—the prophet, Nineveh was in its glory.  And Nahum prophesied exactly how—and, Nahum prophesied exactly how Nineveh would be destroyed.  He wrote it down in a book.  And years and years and years later, Nineveh was stormed by the great combination of the east and the west, by Nabopolassar, the father of Nebuchadnezzar. 

And, he besieged Nineveh for two solid years and was unable to break the ramparts.  And then the prophecy of Nahum came to pass: The Tigris River rolls out of its banks and beyond its boundaries.  And, the furious floodwaters of the Tigris River beat against the wall of Nineveh and dissolved it and washed it away.  And when the tide subsided, Nabopolassar and his confederates entered through the bridge and destroyed Nineveh forever.  And Nahum wrote that years and years and years before in his book.  And you can read it for yourself. 

“All right, Preacher.  You have these prophecies of a thousand years ago and centuries ago.  How about today?  How about today?  How about now?  Does the Bible prophesy now and I can see it with my eyes?”

Yes, sir.  The Bible prophesies now and you can see it with your eyes. 

I have chosen three things that the Bible prophesies, among a multitude of other things.  I have chosen three things that the Bible prophesies concerning now.  And I can watch it with my eyes.

Here's one of them:

And I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy...

And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked out with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand.

Ah, haven't I seen that, arrayed in scarlet, covered with jewels, raising the cup, ah, the mother of harlots—mother church? 

And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs...  And when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

And who wouldn't? 

An angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her...

Here is a mind which hath wisdom. 

The woman sits upon the beast.  And that beast are the seven mountains on which the woman sitteth. 

Do you know a great city called ‘the city built on the seven hills?”  Did you ever see one in that mother church dressed in scarlet, covered with jewels, lifting up the host to the Lord?  Don't come with the blood of the saints and the martyrs of Jesus, riding on the back of the beast supported by the government.

Why, I can just see it, read it in a book.  There it is.  I turn the page.  It's just here.  It's all through this Book.  This age is entering, the Bible says, a time, and a last time, when this world will be an armed camp.  A nation will be a nation for an arsenal.  And secretly and clandestinely and certainly and openly and avowedly… 

 

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