Rev. Mark Creech
RevMarkCreech.org
There are many arguments that can be made in defense of the Bible.
We could speak of its remarkable unity—many authors, many books, written over many centuries yet presenting one great message. We could speak of its historical reliability, fulfilled prophecy, indestructibility, and worldwide influence.
Critics have tried to bury, burn, ban, mock, discredit, and explain it away.
Yet there it stands.
One of my favorite poems, titled The Anvil of God’s Word, was written by John Clifford:
Last eve I paused beside a blacksmith’s door,
And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime;
Then looking in, I saw upon the floor,
Old hammers worn with beating years of time.
“How many anvils have you had,” said I,
“To wear and batter all these hammers so?”
“Just one,” said he, and then with twinkling eye,
“The anvil wears the hammers out, you know.”
“And so,” I thought, “The Anvil of God’s Word,
For ages skeptic blows have beat upon,
Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard,
The Anvil is unchanged, the hammers gone.”
Indeed, the hammers wear out, yet the Anvil remains.
Perhaps one of the greatest evidences for the Bible is its power to transform a life.
Dennis Prager once made this point with a simple illustration. Imagine your car breaks down late at night in a dangerous part of a city. You are standing alone when you see a group of large men walking toward you. Would it make you feel better to know they had just come from a Bible study?
The question makes the point.
The Bible changes people.
Consider Augustine, one of the greatest minds of the ancient world. He was brilliant, well-educated, and deeply restless. For years, he struggled and resisted surrendering himself fully to God.
Then, during a period of intense spiritual turmoil, Augustine heard a voice say, “Take up and read.” He opened the Scriptures and read from Romans 13. The words struck directly at the life he was living. Augustine turned to Christ, and the man once mastered by his passions became one of the most influential Christian thinkers in history.
Lee Strobel followed a different path.
He was an atheist and an investigative journalist. When his wife became a Christian, Strobel began examining Christianity’s claims for himself. For nearly two years, he investigated the evidence regarding Jesus Christ and the reliability of the biblical record.
The investigation did not end as he expected.
The skeptic became a believer, and the journalist who once resisted Christianity eventually devoted much of his life to defending the faith he had once questioned.
Then there was Jacob DeShazer.
During World War II, DeShazer was captured by the Japanese and spent years as a prisoner of war. His suffering filled him with bitterness and hatred toward his captors.
Then he was allowed, for just three weeks, to read a Bible.
As he read Christ’s words – especially His words about forgiveness – something began to change within him.
After the war, DeShazer returned to Japan not for revenge but as a missionary of the gospel.
That is the transformative power of the Word of God.
A scholar. A skeptic. A soldier.
Different centuries. Different circumstances. Different struggles.
But the same Book. The same Christ. The same transforming power.
I do not have to look only to famous people.
I can add my own father’s testimony.
When I was a teenager, my father encouraged me to start reading the Scriptures. Interestingly, his own journey into the Bible had begun through a carpool he rode in each day with several fellow laborers. One of the men began promoting religious doctrines that my father sensed were wrong, though at the time he could not explain exactly why.
So he picked up a Bible and began searching the Scriptures for himself.
What began as an effort to prove a cultist wrong became something far more important. While examining the Word of God, my father came to see the truth about his own soul and his need for Christ. That search ultimately led him to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
I took my father’s advice seriously and began reading the Bible daily for myself. I am thankful I did.
As I read, I discovered that the Bible did more than provide me with religious information.
It showed me myself. It revealed my sin. It awakened my conscience. It made me aware that I was accountable to a holy God. Most importantly, it showed my need for a Savior.
By God’s grace, I surrendered my life to Christ.
From that point forward, the direction of my life began to shift. My ambitions shifted. My aspirations shifted. The way I saw myself, others, and the world around me shifted.
That is what the Bible does.
It does not merely inform the mind. It pierces the heart. It exposes sin. It reveals Christ. It brings men and women face-to-face with God.
The central figure of the Bible is Jesus Christ.
The Old Testament anticipates Him. The Gospels reveal Him. The Epistles explain His death and His resurrection. The final pages of Scripture point to His return and His everlasting kingdom.
The great message of the Bible is found in John 3:16:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
The Bible tells us that sin entered the world through Adam and that death came by sin. Humanity rebelled against God, and that rebellion continues in every human heart.
We have all sinned.
But the Bible also tells us what God has done about it.
Christ, the divine Son of God, came.
He lived without sin. He was the Lamb without blemish. Yet on the cross He bore the sins of others.
The Scripture says He “bare our sins in his own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24).
He suffered in the place of sinners. He bore the judgment we deserved. He died so that guilty men and women could be forgiven, reconciled to God, and given everlasting life.
He rose again from the dead, vindicating His claims and demonstrating His victory over sin and death.
Through Christ, every guilty stain can be removed.
Through Christ, sinners can be fully forgiven.
Through Christ, lives can be made brand new.
So the great question is this:
Have you trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord?
And Christian, what place does this Book have in your life?
If we would live wisely in a confused world, we must return again and again to the Scriptures.
Read the Book.
Study the Book.
Believe the Book.
Obey the Book.
Build your whole life upon the Book.
Someone once said, “Sin will keep you from this Book, but this Book will keep you from sin.”
There is much truth in that.
We live in an age when people are encouraged to do what is right in their own eyes. But the Christian has been given something better. We have been given the Word of God as a plumb line for measuring the issues of life.
No other book can rightly be compared with it.
The critics will continue to swing their hammers.
The arguments will come and go.
The skeptics will rise and disappear.
Still, the Anvil remains.
The same Word that has outlasted its enemies and still has the power to break hard hearts, awaken consciences, lead sinners to Christ, and change the direction of a human life.
