Hope for Your Heart: Finding Strength in Life's Storms (17 page)

If you feel like you’re living life in Carlsbad Caverns . . . directionless, desperate, despairing . . . God has a lamp He’d like to place in your hands. It will faithfully guide you every day of your life, and its light can never be snuffed out. That lamp is the tried and true Word of God. The psalmist understood this when he wrote, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
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Indeed, God’s Word illumines the darkest cave, sheds light in the murkiest of tunnels, and, most importantly, shows us the way out.

How well I remember a time when I knew nothing about the Word of God. Oh, I had a Bible, but I never opened it. I attended a church, but no one brought a Bible with them. There was no Bible
study
and no real appreciation for the rich truths that would make such an undertaking worthwhile.

Eventually the Lord put me in a biblically based church, and what an experience! We were continually turning the pages of Scripture, though initially those sitting next to me had to help me find the right references. As one Bible teacher amusingly commented, “June is just like a blank page.” How true it was!

Never before had I heard the Bible taught with such power. Soon I began to live for Sundays. I was so excited that I could hear God’s basic plan and purpose for life . . . even
my
life. I was learning directly from the Bible about creation, history, and “His story.”

But, although I liked what I was learning, how could I have a rational, reasonable assurance that the Bible itself was true? I was a logical thinker . . . I loved math . . . and therefore I did not want to be swayed emotionally or to place my hope in something half true.

While I was being exposed to biblical truth on Sundays, my high school history teacher was giving multiple reasons to disbelieve the Scriptures during the week. He attempted to discredit the Bible with certain arguments.

Argument #1
involved “the Exodus” in Exodus chapter 14. He said no miracle occurred when Moses led the two million Israelites out of Egyptian bondage. They did not cross through the middle of the Red Sea on dry ground; rather they crossed the Sea of Reeds, which was only a few inches deep. There was no miraculous parting of the deep waters.

After hearing this explanation, I told my Bible teacher, “I understand that Moses didn’t really perform a miracle by parting the Red Sea . . . it was only the shallow Reed Sea.” Without hesitation my wise teacher exclaimed, “Why, that’s an even greater miracle! The entire Egyptian army, in hot pursuit of the Israelites, drowned in only a few inches of water!” I smiled . . . and kept smiling.

Argument #2
concerned supposed “conflicting biblical accounts.” My history teacher stated that the Bible contains obvious contradictions. The Gospel of Matthew presents Jesus miraculously feeding the
five
thousand, whereas Mark’s Gospel presents Jesus feeding
four
thousand.

However, when I later read both Matthew and Mark, to my surprise I discovered that
both
Gospels detail
two different accounts
of Jesus miraculously feeding four thousand and miraculously feeding five thousand people. (See for yourself in Matthew chapters 14 and 15, also in Mark chapters 6 and 8.) Why is it presumed that there was only
one
miraculous mega-feast? Obviously there is no contradiction.

Early in my search for truth I heard people say, “The Bible is basically a book of history, poetry, and
mythology
. How can any intelligent person put hope in such an unreliable book?”

The first major defense I heard for the reliability and validity of Scripture was in the realm of prophecy. Of all the world’s designated “holy books,” the Bible alone contains prophecies, with one exception. In Islam, there is one
self-fulfilling
prophecy in the Qu’ran that refers to Muhammad.

In contrast, the Bible contains many prophecies that have been fulfilled and recorded in history . . . not just in the Bible. The astronomical odds for the fulfillment of so many prophecies alone validates the truthfulness and reliability of the Bible.

Two points are helpful to understand. First, the apostle Peter explains, “No prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:20–21). In other words, these supernatural occurrences have a supernatural source . . . God Himself.

And secondly, many people don’t realize the scientific truths contained within the pages of Scripture. I continue to be absolutely amazed at this area of study and the support it gives to the truthfulness and reliability of the Bible.

For those who ask, “Can I really place my
hope
in the promises of the Bible?” I answer, “Absolutely!” Let me explain.

SCIENTIFIC TRUTHS IN THE BIBLE
³

Even though the Bible is not a science textbook, it reveals many scientific facts . . . and the Bible never contradicts true science. In truth, the Bible bore witness to the following facts . . .
long before scientists ever
“discovered” them too
.

1. Geophysics: The Earth Is Round, a Circular Sphere
⁴

For thousands of years, most people believed the earth was flat. Until the sixteenth century when astronomers Copernicus and Kepler postulated otherwise, only a few philosophers opposed the prevalent belief that a ship could sail off the edge of the earth!

This scientific theory held fast until the invention of the compass and Magellan’s voyage in 1521. Being the first person to circle the globe, Magellan demonstrated that a ship could continually travel west or east around the world and return to its original point of departure without falling off the earth!

However, this scientific truth had been revealed in the Bible more than 2,300 years before Magellan by the prophet Isaiah in the eighth century b.c. Obviously Isaiah did not get his wisdom from the science of his day, which taught that the earth was flat, for he proclaimed, “He [God] sits enthroned above the
circle
of the earth” (Isa. 40:22). The Hebrew word
chug
means “circle, sphere, circuit.”
⁵
The earth Isaiah described was indeed a circular sphere.

2. Planetology: The Earth Is Suspended in Space
⁶

During the time when the book of Job was written, the most advanced scientific theory presented planet earth as flat. Earth was believed to be carried on the back of a gigantic turtle swimming through some cosmic sea.

Later theories presented the earth as carried on the back of a tiger or an elephant. (The shaking of the elephant accounted for earthquakes.) Only in the seventeenth century a.d. did the scientific community, with the help of Newton’s gravitational theory, discover the force that propels celestial bodies through space.

However, this scientific truth had been revealed in the Bible much earlier in the book of Job, written around the fifteenth century b.c.: “He [God] spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing” (Job 26:7).

3. Astronomy: The Stars Cannot Be Counted
⁷

For thousands of years during Old Testament times, the number of stars in the skies was considered to be between twelve hundred and four thousand as seen by the naked eye. In a.d. 150 the world-renowned astronomer Ptolemy emphatically stated the exact number of stars to be 1,056.

Yet earlier, around 2000 b.c., God had told Abraham, “‘Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be’” (Gen. 15:5). Within a short time Abraham had more than four thousand descendants, later numbering in the millions. Was the Bible wrong? No.

With the scientific invention of the telescope in 1609, followed by the Hubble telescope in the 1990s, scientists today declare the stars to be as numerous as the sands of the sea. Astronomers estimate that there are at least 10 to the 26
^th
power—that is a hundred million billion billion stars. If you could count ten numbers per second, it would take you at least a thousand million billion years to count to that number.
⁸

However, this scientific truth had been revealed in the Bible from God to Abraham some 3,700 years before the telescope was invented: “I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore” (Gen. 22:17).

4. Earth Science: Mountains and Canyons Exist in the Sea
⁹

For thousands of years, until the twentieth century, the scientific assumption was that the ocean was bowl-shaped—shallow around the edges and deepest in the middle. Yet today researchers have discovered that some of the highest mountains and deepest valleys exist in the middle of oceans, including the Atlantic range. In the Pacific Ocean, the Mariana Trench near the Philippines is over seven miles deep.

However, this scientific truth had been revealed in the Bible several thousand years earlier. In the tenth century b.c., David spoke of “the valleys of the sea” (2 Sam. 22:16). In the eighth century b.c., rebellious Jonah described sinking to the bottom of a submerged mountain after being thrown overboard: “To the
roots of the mountains
I sank down” (Jonah 2:6).

5. Oceanography: Springs and Fountains Exist in the Sea

For thousands of years, people were unaware of the hidden springs and fountains on the sea floor. Then, after World War II, research ships discovered underwater volcanoes, and today more than ten thousand have been cataloged. Researcher Dr. William Rubey of the U.S. Geological Survey reports that each year 430 tons of water are released from underwater volcanic outlets.
¹⁰
The heat from the volcanic activity forces the entrapped water out through one of these natural openings.

However, this scientific truth had been revealed much earlier in several books of the Bible. In the fifteenth century b.c., the first book of the Bible described Noah as having entered the ark when “
All the springs
of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.” Then, after forty days and nights, “The
springs of the deep
and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed” (Gen. 7:11; 8:2). In the tenth century b.c., the Bible says of the Creator God, “He established the clouds above and fixed securely the
fountains of the deep
” (Prov. 8:28).

6. Hematology: Life Is in the Blood
¹¹

Bloodletting was a widespread, medical procedure practiced among many peoples for some three thousand years, until the early twentieth century. The medical community believed that any disease could be treated by removing a sizable amount of blood from a patient. Scientists and surgeons believed that bloodletting would remove stagnant blood building up in the extremities.

The more severe the problem, the more blood would be “let,” whether by lances or leeches. But the truth is, bloodletting caused many illnesses to escalate in severity, even to the point of death. Suffering with a throat infection in 1799, George Washington, the first president of the United States, had approximately four pints (1.7 liters) of blood removed from his body, a process that contributed to his death.

Hundreds of years after Moses penned Leviticus, Herophilos, the celebrated Alexandrian physician of the third century b.c., identified blood as the carrier of disease. However, notice the irony. Centuries earlier, the Bible had presented blood as the carrier of life. And the Bible does not mention even once the weakening, sometimes deadly practice of bloodletting. “The life of every creature is its blood” (Lev. 17:14).

7. Urology: Circumcision Is to Be Performed on the Eighth Day
¹²

God gave circumcision as a sign of His covenant with Israel. Why was this circumcision to occur on the eighth day after birth?

In 1947 Martin Rosenthal wrote a letter to the editor of
The Journal
of the American Medical Association
explaining the best time to perform a circumcision. Babies do not possess adequate clotting factors until five to seven days after birth and therefore can be susceptible to hemorrhaging. Thus circumcision should not be performed until the end of the first week of life in order to prevent the danger of severe hemorrhage. (Today a vitamin K injection is routinely administered after birth to alleviate this danger.)

In other words, the best day to perform a circumcision is on the eighth day after birth.
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And medical science today still affirms Rosenthal’s conclusions.

However, God had told Abraham (some four thousand years previously) the exact day this medical procedure should be done: “For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised” (Gen. 17:12). The Bible proves to be true even in this medical matter.

8. Public Health: Policies Are Needed

For forty years Moses grew up in Pharaoh’s court during the writing of ancient Egypt’s most significant medical book. In 1536 b.c.
The Pa
pyrus Ebers
became the “bible” of medical books, the recognized world standard, because of Egypt’s position as world leader.

This medical volume presents hundreds of medical remedies including drugs made of “lizard’s blood, swine’s teeth, putrid meat, stinking fat, moisture from pig’s ears, milk goose grease, asses’ hooves, animal fats from various sources, excreta from animals . . . human beings, donkeys, antelopes, dogs, cats, and even flies.”
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Moses knew all these accepted medical practices and potions (actually “quack cures”). Yet as the one chosen by God to be the deliverer at the Exodus, the one through whom God gave the Law, the one who established hundreds of directives regarding health and sanitation, never did Moses recommend these so-called “remedies”; he never mentioned even one of them.