More reasons to believe in the Word of God
1 Peter 3:15:
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:(1)
How do we know the bible is the word of God? Because God has revealed this to us thru the Holy Spirit. But how do you communicate this to an unbeliever who doesn't have Jesus in his heart. Here are some ways we can get started;
Fulfilled Prophesy, with virtually every city within 1000 miles of Jerusalem having its future foretold in detail. Consider the following from Ezekiel 26:1-14
1: And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the first day of the month,(2) that the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2: Son of man, because that Tyrus hath said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken that was the gates of the people: she is turned unto me: I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste:
3: Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up.
4: And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her,(3) and make her like the top of a rock.
5: It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD: and it shall become a spoil to the nations
6: And her daughters which are in the field shall be slain by the sword; and they shall know that I am the LORD.
7: For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will bring(4) upon Tyrus Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, (5) with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people.
8: He shall slay with the sword thy daughters in the field: and he shall make a fort against thee, and cast a mount against thee, and lift up the buckler against thee. (6)
9: And he shall set engines of war against thy walls, and with his axes he shall break down thy towers.
10: By reason of the abundance of his horses their dust shall cover thee: thy walls shall shake at the noise of the horsemen, and of the wheels, and of the chariots, when he shall enter into thy gates, as men enter into a city wherein is made a breach.
11: With the hoofs of his horses shall he tread down all thy streets: he shall slay thy people by the sword, and thy strong garrisons shall go down to the ground.
12: And they shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise: and they shall break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses: and they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water.
13: And I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease; and the sound of thy harps shall be no more heard.
14: And I will make thee like the top of a rock: thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more: for I the LORD have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD. (7)
9: Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the LORD, and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and an hissing, and perpetual desolations.(8)
6: And now have I given all these lands unto the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him.(9)
Tyre was the main Phoenician seaport on the eastern Mediterranean sea.
It is about 35 miles north of Mount Carmel. The city was built along the
coast and on two isles about half a mile off shore. King Hiram of Tyre
supplied cedars and craftsmen for the temple that Solomon built. He also
supplied sailors for Solomon's commercial fleet.
Coastal Tyre was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, but while under siege,
the people withdrew to the islands off shore and fortified their city.
Since the Babylonians had no navy they could do nothing but lay waste to
the coastal part of the city. It was years later when God raised up another
king for his purpose, this was Alexander the great. The Greeks swept thru
the known world conquering all that came before them. Tyre presented a
problem to Alexander as he too had little naval power. But in what is considered
to be his greatest battle of all time, he "scraped the dust" of coastal
Tyre and used the ruins to build a causeway out to the Island and defeated
it.
Tyre was built by the Sidonians, 240 years before the foundation of the temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, 1260 BC.; for this reason it is called by Isaiah the Daughter of Sidon. It soon surpassed its mother city in extent, power, and riches. The isle itself on which the city taken by Alexander was built, is of an irregular form, and not exceeding half a mile where broadest; so that its whole circumference could not exceed a mile and a half. The ports are still pretty large, and in part defended from the sea, each by a long ridge resembling a mole, stretching out directly on both sides from the head of the island. Its modern name is Tur. It afterwards stood a five months' siege in the 12th century A.D., when the Crusaders reduced it by starvation to a surrender. It was retaken from him in the year 1291 by the Mameluke Sultan of Egypt. After this it fell to decay, and became, as it were, buried in its own ruins; an exact completion of Ezekiel's prophecies respecting it. The isle is now desert and rocky, destitute even of shrubs and grass. The wretched fishermen who frequent the spot, and dry their nets on its now solitary shore, are quite unconscious of the classic ground on which they tread; of that spot where were collected, as into one common storehouse, the amber of Prussia and the tin of Britain; the linen of Egypt and the spices of Arabia; the slaves of Caucasus and the horses of Scythia. The original city, Continental Tyre, was besieged by Shalmanezer and alone resisted the united fleets of the Assyrians and Phoenicians; a circumstance which greatly heightened its pride. Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Tyre at the time that Ithobalus was king of that city, 572 B.C.; but did not take it until thirteen years after. But before it was conquered the inhabitants had retired with most of their effects into a neighboring island, where they built a new city. The old one was razed to the very foundation, and has since been no more than a village known by the name of Paleo-Tyrus, or Ancient Tyre; but the new one rose to greater power than ever.The island city was in this great and flourishing condition when Alexander, "from the land of Chittim", besieged and took it.
Today Tyre is nothing like it was in was in its spender, and has become a place for the casting of fishermen's nets.
3. See notes on Alexander the great
4. Notice God will bring, here he declares his sovereignty over the nations
5. Rather then come from the east across the Arabian desert, he marched up the Euphrates
6. Siege lasted 15 years see also Ezekiel 29:18, captured in 572 BC.
7. "NEVER BE REBUILT" fulfilled by Alexander the great in 332 BC