How do we know the Bible is true?

Absolutely. The phrase "Thus says the Lord", or something like it, occurs nearly 700 times in the first five books alone. You find it 400 times in the historical books, around 400 times in the Prophets — about 150 times in Isaiah alone! In Ezekiel you find expressions such as "the word of the Lord came to me, saying", and similar, around 350 times. Finally, in the New Testament, the expression "it is written" occurs around 80 times. No other book has a remotely similar claim to be the Word of God.

It is very clear that if we say the Holy Scriptures are given by inspiration of God, the claim must be supported by the contents of the Scriptures themselves. The proof is to be found there and nowhere else.

One of the most impressive things in Scripture is its unity. This unity is impossible without inspiration. When we find writers, separated by centuries, writing in different countries, writing on themes far beyond human reach, writing from different standpoints, writing, as one author happily phrased it, "without collusion or collision," we can only conclude that these writers were divinely inspired.

Very much can be said to prove the inspiration of the Bible. One proof that cannot be attacked is prophecy. There are over three hundred prophecies in the Old Testament about Christ, and these have been strikingly fulfilled. It is impossible, in the nature of things, that the prophecies could be made to fit the fulfilment, or the fulfilment the prophecies.

The Lord says, "Scripture cannot be broken" — He appeals to it as of equal authority with His own words, refers to it as testifying of Him, explains after His resurrection what it taught about Himself, declares that everything it said must be fulfilled, opens His disciples' understanding to grasp it, and declares that His rising from the dead would be useless to convince those who did not believe it. He quotes it as absolutely conclusive authority. Facts questioned here are referred to by Christ as undoubted history.

There are evidences on every hand, many and varied and of the very best; evidences both direct and indirect. Museums of antiquity contain them; evidences of the Bible's truthfulness are written large on Egyptian and Assyrian monuments and temples; the ruins of buried cities and the tombs of forgotten kings are full of them, and the spade of the excavator brings fresh witnesses to light every year.

It seems to be forgotten that God is not dependent on man to authenticate the revelation He has made, and that if the word of God is not its own witness, no amount of human evidence will establish it as such in the soul. Besides, the facts brought forward, and the translations made from ancient cylinders and monuments, take on a very different look and importance depending on the views of the various interpreters.

But it is by its acting on his heart and conscience, and revealing God to him, that he knows it. I know what a knife is when it cuts me, and honey when I taste its sweetness. It is not a matter of proof. The word acts through grace on the soul, and I am conscious of its actings from God as sharper than any two-edged sword, and I find all things naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom I have to do, and that is God. So I know it is His word, His eye on me.

"If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority." Notice, He says "If anyone wills to do," not "If he has done." Where the heart is right in God's sight, He gives the capacity to know His will. Very often we do not get light, because we are not prepared to walk in the light once we know it.