July 6, 2024
We now live in a world and society of skepticism. Most people no longer believe the Bible is true or that it is God’s Word. Things Christians hold sacred are now considered myth by the world. But the truth is that our beliefs are easily proven true to people not so blind as not to see. St. Paul told Timothy, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). St. Peter said, “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Pet. 1:16).
Dr. Simon Greenleaf, the late great Harvard law professor wrote a great little apologetics entitled, The Testimony of the Evangelists. Dr. Greenleaf examined the evidence for the truth of the four gospels as a judge and jury would. He writes that the law accepts ancient documents that meet certain criteria. He said, “If documents are offered in evidence in court and are found in proper places under care of persons with whom they are expected to be found, and if they bear no marks of forgery, the law presumes they are genuine and are permitted to be read in evidence, unless the opposing party is able successfully to impeach them.
The burden of showing them to be false is devolved on the party who makes that objection.” He added, “The four evangelists should be admitted in corroboration of each other, as readily as Josephus and Tacitus, or Polybius and Livy.” In other words, we don’t question as true the writings of other ancient historians.
The difference, of course, is that Satan has blinded and deceived most people in the world today. How sad!
Because of the persecution and miseries these men endured, it was impossible they could persist in affirming these truths, had Jesus not actually risen from the dead. They had no reason to lie. Men do not risk their lives for lies. Dr. Greenleaf added, “Since the overthrow of the Roman Empire, not a vestige of antiquity has been found impeaching, in the slightest degree, the credibility of the sacred writers; but on the contrary, every result has tended to confirm it.”
Atheist Baruch Spinosa assumed all things are governed by immutable laws. Greenleaf said, “This erroneous assumption is the tortoise, on which stands the elephant which upholds his system of atheism.” David Hume made the same error in excluding anything derived from inference or deduction from facts. He confined us to only knowledge from our own experience. This would result in no advancement of knowledge. Satan has used these and other skeptics to blind the minds of people past and present.
The truth is that Jesus was God in the flesh, died for our sins, and rose from the dead the third day. And, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:13).
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Ralph Fudge is the pastor of Big Ochlocknee Baptist Church in Coolidge, Ga., and has a Master’s degree in theology from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
