Thus Saith The Lord?
When the Bible states “thus saith the Lord...”, did
He really say it, or do people just think He did? By simple definition, the
words of men are declared to be “tradition,” and the word of God is
declared to be “Scripture.” There is a clear and perfect difference. One
is subject to change and modification as man changes, and the other is subject
to God, who never changes (if He did change, then He could never be trusted).
Let’s look at the Lord Jesus Christ. Every time that
Jesus opened His mouth, He taught people from the Scriptures. He never wasted
a single breath teaching people’s opinions about things. As a matter of
fact, Jesus stated plainly that He loved the Scriptures, and hated tradition
(read Mark 7:6-9)!
The Apostle Paul believed that only by knowing and
trusting the Scriptures (and not some church) would save a person’s soul (2
Timothy 3:15). All Paul did since his conversion to Christ was preach “Thus
saith the Lord...” out of an Old Testament Bible! He never wasted time
preaching opinions, conjectures, or traditions!
An Honest Test
Anybody can know that the Bible is the very word of God
just by putting it to an honest test. The only ones who do not know this great
fact are those who have accepted what someone else said about the Bible. Every
skeptic should put the Bible to the following test with a humble heart,
seeking to know and please God. The test is very simple. Just obtain some
books that people have ever written containing prophecies about future events.
Go through them and begin to list every vision and prediction, and then find
out if the predictions ever came true or not. God was so bold as to say that
if any person claimed to be God’s prophet, they would be known by whether
what they said always came true or not. And He commanded that if someone
claimed to speak for God, and their prophecy did NOT come true, that they were
to be killed! God was serious (see Deuteronomy 18:20-22)! After you read
through the writings of Nostradamus, astrologers, scientists, philosophers,
“card readers,” and the like, you will see one thing clear and simple -
only the Bible comes through every time! That’s because the Bible is not
men’s words!
According to the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 3: 16 (I’m
giving you the places in your Bible so that you can look them up for
yourself), God breathed the very words that He wanted written in the Bible,
and then the men wrote them down. The men themselves weren’t inspired, but
just perfectly guided so that what they wrote, was as if God had Himself
penned the words!
Where Are God’s
Words?
According to Matthew 4:4, the words of the Bible came
from the very mouth of God, and Jesus Christ commanded mankind to live by
them. Therefore, THOSE WORDS must be available for a person to read,
understand, obey, and live by, or else Jesus Christ was the biggest liar who
ever lived!!!
The Apostle Peter said in 1 Peter 1:23-25, that a person
is “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word
of God, which liveth and abideth for ever... the word of the Lord endureth for
ever. And THIS is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.” Peter
therefore believes that the very word of God that saves a sinner’s soul is
something that is present (abiding) on this earth, and available for all to
read! He didn’t refer to it as something only he had, but that you can read
for your very own!
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A Complete and
Trustworthy Package
Now, this brings up a very important conclusion: If God
inspired the words of the Bible, then the entire Bible is to be taken as the
words of God. Remember that Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, and all the apostles
did not refer to the Old Testament as myths, but rather as Scripture when
writing the New Testament. And if the entire Bible is the word of God, then we
have no right only picking and choosing what we wish to believe and wish not
to believe!
And beyond that, it is the Bible alone that declares God
perfectly in every detail. Man’s religious Tradition fails in every detail.
It supposes that God can only be understood gradually, and requires great
efforts by humanity to seek Him out and understand Him. Whereas the Bible
takes the position that it is God who is the One seeking us out! Tradition is
not fixed to a specific set of writings because they are ever being written,
and changing. No one individual could practically possess the contents of
“sacred” Tradition because it is far too extensive (35 volumes of Greek
and Latin church fathers, 35 volumes of church council decrees, 25 volumes of
formal statements and decrees by popes, and about 55 volumes of the saying and
doings of saints, making for a total of about 150 volumes of “tradition”)!
Finally, even though tradition has been declared to be Sacred and Holy just as
Scripture is, an honest evaluation of ANY of the writings of the church
fathers will reveal that the collection of writings is anything but inspired.
They constantly challenge one another, and correct earlier “heresies” that
previous fathers believed and taught. The principle is: Man’s religious
Tradition is EVOLUTION applied to God! But the Scriptures are God’s
SALVATION applied to man! Truly, you can only trust God’s word with your
soul’s eternity!