View Article CAN THE BIBLE BE TRUSTED?
CAN THE BIBLE BE TRUSTED?
(from the Breath of Life Series by C. D. Brooks)
transcribed and edited by Derek Morris
There are many ways we could answer the question: “Can the Bible be Trusted?” I want to share with you this evening one of the most powerful reasons. When I was a young fellow I had no intention of being a preacher. I had a position with a large investment company in England and a bright future ahead of me. Then the Lord called me to be a spokesman for Him. I said, “Okay, Lord. I’ll do it if You want me to, but I don’t want to just stand up and talk. I want something important to say. I want to be sure that I can believe what I’m saying. I want evidence that the Bible can be trusted.” This topic, more than any other, convinced me beyond any shadow of a doubt that the Bible can be trusted.
We want to go to the Bible tonight. We’ll see that the Bible is very clear concerning this world and its future. In Daniel 2, we go back to the ancient kingdom of Babylon. Babylon in all of its glory and all of its might. The king of Babylon was a man named Nebuchadnezzar who lived some six hundred years before Christ. One night while Nebuchadnezzar was sleeping, he had a dream. When he woke up he was in a cold sweat, but he couldn’t remember the dream--and he couldn’t forget it either. The Bible says that he was terribly disturbed, so he called together some folk that he had on the payroll who were supposed to tell him about dreams, tell him about the stars, tell him about the mysteries. He paid these folk. So he called them in and he said, “I’ve had a dream, and my soul is troubled. But I can’t remember that dream. I want you to tell me what that dream was, and then tell me what it meant.”
Their answer was simple. “King, you tell us the dream and we’ll give you the interpretation.”
The Bible tells us that the king got angry. He said, “I might have known that you’d try to stall for time.” He saw through their lies and their lack of true wisdom. So the Bible says in chapter 2:12, “The king was angry and very furious and commanded that all of the wise men of Babylon be destroyed.” After all, he wasn’t a follower of the true God; he was an absolute monarch, so it was no problem for him to get rid of people that he didn’t like. He saw that they were a bunch of fakers. All these years he had believed them, because they could always make up something. But when there came a real test, they could not deliver.
So his soldiers went out immediately to gather all the wise men together for execution. And do you know that there were four young men in Babylon who were considered wise men who weren’t called in with the rest of them? Their names were Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. When the soldiers came knocking on their door to take them, Daniel said to the soldier, “Why is this decree so hasty from the king? Why doesn’t he give us time?”
So Daniel went in before the king and said, “O King, give us time to consider the matter. After all, you didn’t ask us before; it’s not fair to put us to death when you haven’t given us a chance.”
And so the king said, “Alright, you fellows take your chance. I’m going to give you an opportunity.”
Daniel got together with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. But that’s not enough. When you’ve got a real problem you’ve got to do more than get together with folks; you’ve got to get together with God. Would you say Amen? So these four young men got down on their knees and began to pray, and when they got through praying God came through as He always does when our trust is in Him.
So Daniel got ready. He called Arioch and he said, “Go tell the king I’ve got an answer.” So Daniel was brought into the presence of the king again.
Now we read in verse 26: “Art thou able to make known unto me the dream which I have seen, and the interpretation thereof?”
I like the way that Daniel answered him, and you’ll see it in your Bible. He said, “The secret which the king demanded, cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers show unto the king?” Daniel was poking a little fun at them there. He said, “What’s wrong with your spirit mediums and your crystal ball gazers? They have no wisdom from God, do they?” And then he said, “But there is a God in heaven…” Would you say Amen?
Daniel didn’t say, “These fellows couldn’t do it, but I can do it.” He didn’t say, “I am smarter than all these others.” Daniel said, “O King, I want you to know who gets the credit for what’s about to happen. There is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets and maketh known to the King Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days.” Verse 28, “and the visions of your head as you lay on your bed are these.”
Now he proceeds to tell him. In verse 31 we read, “Thou, O King, saw and behold a great image. This great image whose brightness was excellent stood before thee and the form thereof was terrible.” An image; a huge metal man.
I can imagine as Daniel began to speak, King Nebuchadnezzar moved on his throne and he looked to the right and to the left and he said, “That’s it! It’s coming back to me now. That’s what I saw!”
Daniel said, “I’ve got something else to tell you. This image’s head was of fine gold, his chest and his arms of fine silver, his belly and thighs of bronze, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.”
No wonder the king was troubled. What did this mean? A huge metal image--gold, silver, brass, iron, iron and clay. “Ah,” said King Nebuchadnezzar. “Daniel, you’re a smart man.”
“Oh no, O King; There is a God in heaven who revealeth secrets. This is what you saw. But I’m not only going to tell you what you saw. I’m going to tell you what it means because the same God who showed you the vision has given me a vision. And the same God who showed you this image has told me the meaning thereof. But before I get to interpreting it I want to tell you something else you saw in the dream.” Verse 34: “Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image on its feet”--Where did the stone strike the image? I want you to remember that. “Which were of iron and clay...and the stone which smote the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.” What a dream for a king to have!
“Now,” Daniel says, “I’m ready to tell you what it means.” In Daniel 2:37-38: “Thou, O King, art a king of kings for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power and strength and glory. Thou art this head of gold.” Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, we’re about to go to school and study some history. There were four great world powers from that day down, and one of those was the kingdom of Babylon. Daniel said, “You saw this great image, his head was gold, his chest and arms of silver, his belly and thighs of brass, his legs of iron and his feet part of iron and part of clay. You, O King, and your kingdom of Babylon are represented by the head of gold. Thou art this head of gold.”
Now, that made the king feel good. He was proud of his kingdom. But he wasn’t very happy about what he heard next.
Daniel said, “O King, you might not like it, but after you shall arise another kingdom that is inferior to you, just as silver is inferior to gold.”
Now, all you’ve got to do is go back to your world history book and you’ll discover that the next kingdom to take the scepter of the world after Babylon was Medo-Persia. God not only revealed that Babylon would fall, but He also revealed through Bible prophecy, in Daniel 5, that it would be succeeded by Medo-Persia.
And just as the prophet foretold, so it happened. Over sixty years after Nebuchadnezzar had received the vision of the great metal image, in 539 B.C., Belshazzar was vice-regent in Babylon. We talked about him on opening night. His father Nabonidus was the king but he was always gone on expeditions, so this man Belshazzar sat on the throne and indulged in every kind of excess. One night he decided to have a party. He called in his band, he called in his naked dancing girls, he told all of his big shots to come, and don’t come alone. Bring not only your wives, but your girlfriends and your concubines. We’re going to have ourselves a bash; Saturday night fever. I read it to you the other night. The Bible says, when he had tasted the wine, he sent for the vessels from the Lord’s house. And they brought in God’s sacred vessels and they poured wine into them and they began to drink. They were having a big time. The girls were dancing, and the band was playing. Everybody who was anybody in Babylon was at that party. The Bible says he gave that party for his top officials. They were all there, except Daniel.
You know, there are some parties a Christian doesn’t get invited to. A young lady came to me one day and said, “I want to be a Christian, but I don’t know how to get rid of my friends.”
I said to her, “All you’ve got to do is start being a Christian and your friends will get rid of you. When you’re living right, they don’t want you around. They can’t let it all hang out if you’re there.”
I can imagine the scribe was sending out the invitations, and finally he came to Daniel’s name. He said to the king, “How are we going to leave Daniel out of this thing, and yet conform to our own laws of protocol?” And I imagine the king saying, “Just forget about Daniel. He wouldn’t come anyhow. And if he does come, there are some things we can’t do.” It ought to be that way with Christians. Would you say Amen?
So while they were dancing, and while they were carousing, and while they were flirting, and while they were drinking wine, suddenly there came a bloodless hand out of the sleeve of darkness and began to write on the white plaster wall of the banquet hall in great Hebrew characters: mene, mene, tekel, upharsin. The Bible says Belshazzar got so scared his knees began to smite together. Paleness came over his countenance. What’s the matter, King? A while ago you were laughing in the face of God. What’s wrong with you now?
“I can’t read the writing. If anybody can tell me what it says I’ll make him the third ruler in Babylon. I’ll put a gold chain about his neck. I’ll clothe him in scarlet.” And again they brought in the astrologers and the soothsayers and the Chaldeans. But they couldn’t read it. I want to tell you tonight: God’s will can only be understood by those who are willing to do God’s will. Would you say Amen?
There they were screaming in terror. The queen mother hears the shouts and comes running into the banquet hall. She sees Belshazzar standing there trembling. She says, “Son, what’s wrong?”
He says, “Look at that writing on the wall. My astrologers and my big shots can’t tell me what it means.”
That queen mother looks up there and the first thing she says is, “There is a man in Babylon whose name is Daniel in whom is the Spirit of the holy God.” So Daniel was sent for. As he walks in he sees the crowd of Babylon’s big shots: drunk, half naked, all of them pale, all of them shivering. He came into the presence of the king and said, “O King, what can I do for you?”
The king said, “Daniel, look up there at that writing. If you can tell us what that says I’ll make you the third ruler in Babylon. I’ll put...”
And Daniel answered and said, “No, King, I’m going to tell you for free. Keep your golden chain, keep your scarlet robe. That is the writing of God and it says, ‘Today you’ve been weighed in the balance and been found wanting. Tonight your kingdom is divided and your soul shall be required of you.’”
While Daniel interpreted the handwriting on the wall, already the Medo-Persian armies were diverting the river Euphrates, over which the great city of Babylon was built, and were preparing to march up the river bed and into the city. In Isaiah 45:1 the Bible says, “Thus saith the Lord to His anointed to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him: and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates: and the gates shall not be shut.” That text was written hundreds of years before Cyrus was born. Can the Bible be trusted when God can name a man hundreds of years before his birth and say, “I’m going to use you to take advantage of the gates which have not been kept”? Why were the huge river gates in Babylon left open? The soldiers were drunk. And that night the head of gold passed away. That night, just as God had foretold, the chest and arms of silver took the scepter of the world. But the great Persian Empire was not to last forever. Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 2:39 that a third kingdom of brass would arise which would rule over all the earth.
The first kingdom was gold -- Babylon.
The second kingdom was silver -- Medo-Persia.
Now comes the third kingdom of brass, represented by the belly and thighs of the image. Who ruled the world after the Medo-Persian Empire? Anybody who has studied classical history can tell you that the next world empire was Greece, under the leadership of Alexander the Great. This was predicted with absolute precision in Daniel 8:21, over two hundred years before it happened. Can the Bible be trusted? Let’s say Amen. In 331 B.C. at the battle of Arbela, the Persian armies fell to the armies of Alexander the Great of Greece.
“And now,” Daniel says, “a fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron” (verse 40). Ladies and Gentlemen, the kingdom that ruled the world after Greece was mighty Rome. You know that. You remember that from high school. The Iron Monarchy of Rome (Gibbons called it that and he wasn’t even a Christian) -- with its iron weapons, its iron armor, and with strength like iron. Surely God knew what He was doing when He represented the Roman Empire by legs of iron. In the second century A.D. Hippolytus wrote of Rome, “Rejoice, blessed Daniel, thou has not been in error. Already the iron rules.”
Mighty Rome, ruling longer than any empire before it, extending its dominion to the far flung corners of the earth, invincible, or so it seemed. But Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar, as recorded in Daniel 2:41: “Whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part iron and part potter clay, the kingdom shall be divided. There shall be in it the strength of iron, for as such as thou sawest iron mixed with clay. And as the toes were part of iron and part of clay, the kingdom shall be partly weak and partly strong.”
Ladies and Gentlemen, when Rome fell in the fifth century as a result of the attacks by barbarian tribes, and most of all by internal corruption and weakness, the Bible said that it would not be succeeded by another world empire. In fact, never again will one nation rule the entire world. Rome fell, just like the Bible prophecy said, predicted one thousand years before it happened. Though many have tried to rule the world since that time, the Bible said, “They shall not cleave one to another.” But there were those who would not listen. There were those who sought to make the Bible a lie. Charlemagne was one of them, but he failed. Napoleon Bonaparte tried. He almost succeeded, but at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, when defeat was certain, it is reported that he threw up his hands and said, “God Himself, God Almighty is too much for me.” Seven words stopped him--spoken over twenty-three hundred years earlier. God had said, “They shall not cleave one to another.” Can the Bible be trusted, my friends? Kaiser Wilhelm, Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, they all tried to prove the Bible a lie. But they all failed. The Bible has never been proved a lie.
“And in the days of these kings,” Daniel 2:44, in the days of these divided nations, that’s in our days, “shall the God of heaven set up a Kingdom which shall never be destroyed.”
“Thou sawest,” said Daniel, “till a stone was cut out which smote the image on its feet.” Who is that Rock? It is none other than Jesus Christ. In the days of the divided toes of the image, Christ is going to come and He’s going to throw down the kingdoms of this world. He’s going to set up His own kingdom wherein dwelleth righteousness. Take hope, Ladies and Gentlemen. This world seems to be out of control, but there’s somebody in charge. There’s somebody looking on. And in the fullness of time, He’s going to throw down the censor. He’s going to stand up and declare to the universe, “It is done.”
All of a sudden the Rock is coming. Peter said, “The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise.” Oh, when Jesus comes it’s going to be something. People talk about a secret rapture. Christ is coming back in majesty, glory and power to settle the issue with men, and everything you love down here except your character is going to be torn down. Fancy cars that we sell our souls for, nice houses that we put ahead of God are going to be smashed to smithereens. Gold and silver will be thrown in the street. What’s going on? The stone is coming; coming to tear down the kingdoms of the world.
Can the Bible be trusted? If the first part of that vision came true in every single detail, why should I doubt the second part? If everything Daniel said has happened, why should I doubt the last part that Jesus will come and set up His kingdom? So what I’m concerned about is being ready when He does come. How about you? When Jesus comes to set up His kingdom, I want to be with the saints.
Daniel concluded by saying (verse 45): “The Great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter. And the dream is certain and the interpretation thereof is sure.”
Is it clear to you where we are? We’re not in the head; Babylon passed away in 539 B.C. We’re not in the chest and arms of silver; Medo-Persia passed off the stage of action in 331 B.C. We’re not in the belly and thighs of brass; Greece fell in 168 B.C. We’re not in the legs of iron; Rome finally collapsed in 476 A.D. Since then we’ve been down in the feet, down in the toes. The next great event of this earth’s history is the coming of Jesus. You don’t need to worry about Russia ruling the world; nobody’s going to do it. And even though the people rage, there sits on the throne of the universe a God who is working at the counsels of His own will. When He is ready, the end will come. Let’s go to the screen.
But in closing I’ve got something important to say to you. I believe in the Word of God. Do you? Can the Bible be trusted? Yes. There is a basis of faith for every reasonable person. If you want to be a fool and blindly argue in the face of clear evidence, you’ll be damned in your unbelief. But if you want to be reasonable, God has given us enough evidence that He is in control, that His word cannot fail. He’s telling you tonight that it’s almost over. He’s coming soon. Don’t you want to be ready? If you do, stand up with me and let’s pray.
Father, thank You for Your word that’s so clear, and so encouraging, and so strong. Thank You for Your word that cannot be broken. Look upon us in mercy tonight, and please captivate our minds with Your truth. Don’t let us go home and forget what we’ve heard. Let the Word of God be in us seed that will germinate and bear fruit. O Lord, we are not worthy, but we ask this in Jesus’ name. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
