"The Books" Sermon Series

The superiority of the Bible, with a view to Islam.

The discussion we are having tonight between Christians and Muslim's began the day the Qur'an claimed in Q4:157, that Jesus did not die across as the Bible says, but someone who merely looked like him died in his place. What I call, "the case of the mistaken identity." The entire new Testament is founded upon this one historic fact. Needless to say Christians and Muslim's have been talking ever since. The message of the new Testament is summarized in John 14:6 where Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." (John 14:6) This Gospel message has unchanged for 2000 years. The apostles proclaimed it, I proclaiming it, and the Christians who stood before Muhammad proclaimed it to him, just does Muhammad recorded in Koran 2:111, "And they say: "None shall enter Paradise unless he be a Jew or a Christian." Those are their (vain) desires. Say: "Produce your proof if you are truthful."" (Q2:111) so in obedience to Muhammad I produce the proof he requested.

It may also surprise Muslims that historically, the first Muslim to trash the Bible was Ibn-Khazem, in 1064 AD.

Although Muslims and Christians both teach that the new Testament was inspired by God, Muslim's today, claim that most of the text has been lost altered and corrupted, so much that the Bible and holding my hand is almost a complete forgery and corruption from what was originally written.

Muslims today are taught that the Bible is so badly corrupted, that when Jesus, the Muslim, cried out on the cross, he did not say, "ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI", but "Allah, Allah, LAMA SABACHTHANI".

Muslims often refer to their "Muslim evangelist", Ahmed Deedat in his book, "Allah in the Bible, What is His Name?" says that "Allelujah" in Rev 19:1 means refers to Allah not Jehovah. He bases this on the fact that Allelu sounds similar to Allah. Problem with this is that Allelu corresponds to praise and the Jah of Allelujah corresponds to the name of God as Jehovah. Deeded also says that when Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI? that is to say, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me'? (Matthew 27:46), He was really crying out to Allah. Most puzzling is that Deedat doesn't even believe Jesus was ever on the cross or ever uttered any of these words."

In fact I challenge any Muslim to find one place in the Bible where "Allah" is ever used once.

Wheat seed was found in the pyramids that was dated to around 2500 BC (It was there for the dead Pharaoh to eat if he got hungry.) Scientists realized it was an important find which would enable them to determine what variety of wheat was in use in the ancient world and could be invaluable for engineering new types of wheat. They took the wheat seed and planted it in fertile soil. Then an amazing thing happened to the 4500 year old seed...It grew! Scientists were stunned. Yet to county folk it was no big news. Farmers understand that seed needs three things for survival; constant darkness, cool temperature and dryness. The Pyramids are the perfect place to store seeds.

Modern skeptics are constantly attacking the Bible. They say parts of the Bible have been lost altered or corrupted over time. They say the Bible we have in our hands is vastly different from the original one 2000 years ago. Such charges are not based upon fact but are an irresponsible and deceptive slur against Gods Holy word. The Dead Sea scrolls, were written about 100 BC. They contained copies of and quotations from many Old Testament books. When they were discovered about 50 years ago, Bible students were anxious to see if the text of Isaiah, for example, had changed in 2000 years. To their delight, the Dead Sea Scrolls confirmed the accuracy of our modern Bibles and muzzled the skeptics.

The Holy Spirit compared the Bible to imperishable seed, "You have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word of God. For, 'All flesh is like grass, ... but the word of the Lord abides forever.' And this is the word which was preached to you" 1 Peter 1:23-25. Peter tells us that the Bible is an indestructible seed. God has promised that He would preserve the message of the Bible, "My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it" Isa 55:11. Jesus said in John 10:35, "the Scripture cannot be broken".

If we took the sum of all the 5,000 manuscripts of the Bible we will find differences ranging from a missing single letter to entire verses.

I make these three important comments to my Muslim friends,

1. All the differences affect less than 1 percent of Scripture.
2. None of the textual variants change any doctrine or believe taught in the Bible. This is what Jesus meant when he said Scripture cannot be broken. The message of salvation and the kingdom of God is the same in every Bible in every country in every language in the world.
3. And perhaps most importantly, only Muslim's claim the Koran contains no textual variants. Christians openly admit textual variants in the Bible, but the proof of textual variants in the Koran is devastating to Muslims for it contradicts their belief in the "unchangeable Mother book" in heaven.

Today, so many Bible cities, names and events have been unearthed, through archaeology that the Bible is considered the single most important historical document in existence. Many lost cities have been located using the Bible as a road map. So startling and impressive are some of the finds that one archaeologist was compelled to say, "They are digging up Bible stories!" There are no known historical errors in the Bible, but there are several glaring historical errors in the Koran.

Have you ever discussed some controversial subject with a small group of your friends. Chances are, not everyone agreed with your personal point of view! Do the guests of a typical television talk show ever agree? Very rarely! In contrast, 40 different men wrote the 66 books of the Bible and discuss hundreds of controversial subjects, yet they all agree. What makes this even more remarkable is that the 40 Bible writers lived as much as 1600 years apart. Imagine their cultural differences! Despite this great potential for contradiction between Bible writers, there is harmony and unity in the Bible's message. That is because the Holy Spirit was directly guiding each of the 40 men to write the Bible.

One scholar has noted that the unity found in the Bible is vastly superior to the sacred writings of all other world religions, including Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Bahai, and Islam. Anyone who has ever studied these writings must admit they are jumbles of disjointed material, without order, continuity or unity of any kind. The 66 books of the Bible on the other hand, weave a unified message from Genesis to Revelation.

Consider the high degree of unity found within the Bible. There is nothing like this, not even approaching this, in any other collection of sacred books of any world religion. The direct inspiration of God is what sets the Bible apart from all other books. The unity of the Bible is a powerful argument for divine inspiration because even a small group of men can rarely come to any degree of unity on even one topic.

Prophecy is foretelling an event in such detail before it happens, so as to necessarily require divine guidance. The Bible is a book containing hundreds of detailed prophecies. There are, for example, well over 60 distinct predictions in regard to our divine Saviour. Did you know that there are at least 29 distinct prophecies foretelling the crucifixion of Christ? Not only were the predictions made 1000 years before the cross, but they were made over 500 years before crucifixion was first used as a form of capital punishment! History verifies this.

"We constantly thank God that when you received from us the word of God's message, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God" (1 Thessalonians 2:13).

Thank you for your kind and polite attention.