Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20040919.htm

ANSWERING OTHERS WITH REASONS FOR OUR FAITH
Part II: Handling Questions Most Often Asked By Christianity's Critics
B. Answering How The Bible's God Is The Real And Only True God
(Deuteronomy 18:15-22 et al.)

Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

Christian Apologist, Josh McDowell, in his work, A Ready Defense, p. 8, lists questions that people who doubt the validity of the Christian faith most often ask about it. Several of those questions are about God, and we cite some of them from McDowell's book as follows:

"How Do You Know God Exists? Isn't There More Than One Way To God? Is Belief in the Trinity Belief in Three Gods?"

In other words, (a) those who doubt the credibility of the Christian faith often wonder how we Christians can be so sure that our God not only exists, (b) but how we can assert that He is the one, true God due to the many other religions in the world that would challenge that claim! (c) Many also question how we Christians can feel comfortable about promoting our faith when we hold to belief in the Trinity, that God is Three in One; such a belief appears to many to be illogical in that it appears we try to make "three equal one", a claim that itself would seem to undermine our faith's credibility!

Yet, as we found in our first message in this series on Christian Apologetics, Peter commands us Christians to give an answer to every man who asks us a logical reason for our faith, 1 Peter 3:15. That means God expects each us to be prepared to explain how we can believe our God exists, how we can claim He is the one true God regardless of what other religions teach to the contrary and how we can hold the doctrine of the Trinity to be perfectly logical and hence true.



Accordingly, en route to meeting this need, we introduce this current message's "Need" section with a question that voices these concerns as though they were posed by one who doubts the validity of the Christian faith (as follows):



(We turn to the sermon "Need" section . . . )



Need: "How can one know the Christian God exists and is the true God especially as He is a Trinity that seems to me to be illogical?"
  1. As we taught in our first message, we defend our Christian faith, using Scripture in alignment with true* statements by apologists.
  2. In doing so, we find the Christian God EXISTS and is the ONLY TRUE God, for He ALONE PERFECTLY fulfills His prophecies:
    1. According to Josh McDowell, Wilbur Smith, who amassed a personal library of 25,000 books wrote that the Bible "is the only volume ever produced . . . in which is to be found . . . a large body of prophecies relating to . . . all the peoples of the earth . . . and to the coming of one who was to be the Messiah . . . [Indeed] not in the entire gamut of Greek and Latin literature . . . can we find any real specific prophecy of a great historical event to come in the distant future, nor any prophecy of a Savior to arise . . . Mohammedanism cannot point to any prophecies of the coming of Mohammed uttered hundreds of years before his birth. Neither can the founders of any cult in this country rightly identify any ancient text specifically foretelling their appearance." (Wilbur M. Smith, The Incomparable Book, p. 9-10 as cited in Josh McDowell, A Ready Defense, p. 31-32)
    2. The Bible makes this very claim, revealing its God ALONE predicts and perfectly fulfills His prophecies as the one, true God (as follows):
      1. God directed Israel to discern His true prophets as those whose predictions all came to be perfectly true, Deuteronomy 18:20-22.
      2. Well, in Isaiah 41:1-29, God used this test to prove He is the one true God versus all other gods of all the Gentile nations:
        1. In Isaiah 41:1, God summoned the world's nations to meet with Him and to behold His truth and surpassing power.
        2. At this meeting, God claimed the nations would try to counter His will for king Cyrus to arise 150 years in the future! (41:2-7)
        3. The rest of the chapter presents God sovereignly claiming He will fulfill His plans re: Cyrus invasion of these Gentile nations and of His restoring Israel to her land, Isa iah 41:8-20.
        4. God then claimed the Gentiles gods could not compete with Him in foretellling and fulfilling prophecy like this, 41:21-29!
        5. Some scholars have tried to claim Isaiah 41 was penned by one later than Isaiah with the result this chapter not stand as a true prophecy. Yet, the complete Isaiah scroll found at Qumran in 1947 shows Isaiah 41 belonged to the first 40 chapters, so such a charge errs! (Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, vol Three, p. 317-321; Bible Knowledge Com., O. T., p. 1030)
        6. [Cyrus came as was thus predicted by Isaiah, 2 Chr. 36:22-23!]
    3. This ability unique to the Bible's God also verifies our Christian faith!
      1. In Deuteronomy 18 where God gave the test for true prophets, He predicted an ultimate prophet, the Messiah, would rise like unto Moses, and that He was to be heard, 18:15; Ryr. St. Bib., KJV, ftn.
      2. This One was predicted by Isaiah in Isaiah 52:13-53:12 to do what only Jesus of Nazareth was recorded doing in the New Testament:
        1. Among other things, this "Servant" would die for the world's sins, be buried and have his days prolonged by rising from the dead, Isaiah 53:8-11. This prophecy matches ONLY what happened to Jesus of Nazareth, Acts 8:26-35; Isa. 53:7-8 et al.
        2. Then, as men believed in this "Servant", they would be justified by God, Isaiah 53:11. This prophecy matches the Gospel of salvation that we Christians proclaim today, 1 Cor. 15:1-11.
      3. These facts in light of archaeological evidence show Jesus Christ fulfilled Isaiah 53, and thus that the Christian faith is from God:
        1. The Qumran Isaiah scroll is dated 150 B. C., Ibid., Z.P.E.B.
        2. Since it would have come from a long line of copies and since Jesus was born 5-4 B. C., (Hoehner, Chron. Aspects of the Life of Christ, p. 27), Jesus Christ fulfilled the Isaiah 53 prophecy!
      4. Thus, by Deuteronomy 18 standards, Christianity is from God!
  3. Then, on the Bible's doctrine of the Trinity, we find that though it is unfathomable to man's mind, it is yet logical and thus defensible:
    1. John 10:30 shows Jesus is "one" with the Father in essence and Matt. 3:16-17 shows all Three Persons of God as distinct from each other.
    2. Since essence comprises that of which God is composed, but the person hood the self-awareness of the Persons of God existing in that essence, meaning essence is different from person hood, the belief that God is One in essence but Three in Persons is logical, Chafer, Major Bible Themes, rev. by John F. Walvoord, p. 40.
Lesson And Application: (1) By fulfilled prophecy, the Bible's God has shown Himself to EXIST and to be the ONLY TRUE God, and the Christian faith to be true! (2) May we thus (a) trust in Christ, Acts 17:24-31; John 3:16, and, (b) in line with 1 Peter 3:15, answer those who ask us about the validity of our God and His Son, Jesus with words like those from this message!

Conclusion: (To illustrate the sermon lesson . . . )

 One of the great evidences for the validity of the Christian faith is the fact the Jesus of Nazareth Himself, in His earthly life, repeatedly alluded to the Old Testament passages He claimed to fulfil; indeed, He did this before even His educated foes who, if they could, would have quickly discredited Him by showing He did not fulfill them!

For example, in John 5:39, 40, 46 and 47, Jesus said to His foes, Jewish religious leaders in Jerusalem (Ryrie St. Bib., KJV, ftn. to John 5:15): "You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me, that you may have life. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote of Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?" (cited from Josh McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, p. 143)

At one point, Jesus claimed to be fulfilling Old Testament Scripture on the spot, and that while He was delivering His message in the synagogue in His own home town of Nazareth where the audience included people who had known him since His early childhood. Luke 4:20-21 records this significant event as follows: "And He closed the book and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon Him. And He began to say to them, 'Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.'" (Ibid.)

When Jesus preached His famous Sermon on the Mount, He said, "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill." (Matthew 5:18) (Ibid.)

In fact, McDowell lists twelve different citations of Jesus' own words found in the Gospels where He directly alluded to His fulfilling Old Testament prophecies, Ibid., p. 142-143. Jesus of Nazareth was obviously "drawing a line in the sand," urging His listeners to check out His words and works to see that He was sanctioned by the God of the Old Testament! He expected to be certified as from God in accord with the test of a true prophet that Moses gave in Deuteronomy 18!

Our Christian faith is TRUE and our GOD is TRUE because we see Christ has OPENLY fulfilled Old Testament prophecy like not other "god" or founder of a religion or religious cult either CAN or HAS been able to do!

May we thus defend our faith, and obey our Lord and His Word by trusting in Him and answering those who question us!