The Apostle Paul, when he reached the end of his life, penned his last letter, the

second Epistle to Timothy, and in the third chapter he wrote, "And from a child thou hast

known the holy Writings (the holy Scriptures), which are able to make thee wise unto

salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of

God", literally, all scripture, all that which is written, is "God-breathed". Human beings

were using the pen and yet Paul made the astounding assertion that the breath of God was

on all their writings. And so Scripture is not just the writings or opinions of men, but the

very Word of God and is "profitable for doctrine (for teaching), for reproof, for

correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect,

thoroughly, or thoroughly furnished unto all good works". At the end of his life another

great Apostle wrote in similar vein. That was the Apostle Peter, and in his second letter,

chapter 1: 19 and 20, he writes: "We have also a more sure word of prophecy; unto

which you do well to take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day

dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the

scripture is of any private interpretation", literally--it does not unfold itself. "For the

prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they

were moved by the Holy Ghost". You will notice that the Apostle Paul has mentioned

God's Word "written", "all scripture is given by inspiration". The Apostle Peter deals

with speech, "holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost". So both

these faithful servants of God stress these two great truths at the end of their lives, and

men of character do not trifle at such a time. So this Book then is a unique Book; and it

makes unique claims. These claims are so startling they either must be true or else they

are just fabrications and not worthy of our consideration. There cannot be any middle

position here; it must be one or the other.

We want you to consider some more facts concerning this book we call the Bible.

Think of its unity; it took something like 2,000 years to write, and what a diversity of

people were used to write it! They were not educated people only. One writer was a

cattle-keeper, a herds-man--Amos. Others were simple fishermen, like Peter and John.

There were, of course scholars, such as the Apostle Paul. He sat at the feet of a noted

teacher, Gamaliel, and his home town was Tarsus whose University which was a very

well-known centre of learning in his day. Two kings were used, Solomon and David.

Now will you think of a book that took 2,000 years to write, all sorts of people from the

highest to the lowest making a contribution to it. What sort of book do you think it

would be when completed? Would it not be a `hotch-potch'? Could you expect it to

have a complete unity, with a complete theme running through it? But that is what you

will find with the Bible. It is an astounding fact, but it is true!

Another point we do well to consider: the Apostle Peter has already told us that we

have "a more sure word of prophecy", and some parts of the Bible are prophetic, that is to

say, they are looking ahead to the future. Peter describes them as "a light that shines in a

dark place". This is like a searchlight piercing the darkness and picking out, infallibly,

things ahead, perhaps a long distance away. Some may say such prophecies are just

guesswork, but this is very foolish because, mathematically, it can be proved that these

things, described with such exactitude, could not have happened by chance. Let us think

of this for a moment. We know as a historical fact that the Lord Jesus Christ was born at