Have Confidence in Your Bible 4

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.”

Matthew 24:35

Even before the time of Christ, in 167 BC, Antiochus Epiphanes, Greek ruler of the Seleucid Empire, decreed that "The books of the law should be found, torn to pieces and burned with fire.” Under his rule, anyone found possessing the Book of the Covenant indeed anyone who adhered to its laws, was condemned to death.

In 303 AD the Roman Emperor Diocletian decreed that every copy of the Scriptures should be destroyed by fire. He killed so many Christians and destroyed so many copies of the Scriptures that he believed he had been successful in ridding the world of the Bible.

They were not the only ones who set out to wipe every trace of the Bible from the face of the earth. Down through history to communist dictators and modern-day atheists, many have tried to ban it, destroy it or discredit it.

The fact is, the Bible has suffered more attempts to destroy or discredit it than any other book and attacks on the Bible have been more vicious and persistent than attacks on any other book, yet the Bible has survived intact and outlasted all its attackers. Is that not further evidence that you can have confidence in your Bible: that it is an extraordinary book?

Interestingly, just 25 years after Diocletian issued that edict to destroy every Bible, the Roman Emperor Constantine, who had once served with distinction under Diocletian, issued another edict declaring that 50 copies of the Scriptures should be produced at the expense of the Roman Empire.

“Why do the nations rage

and the peoples plot in vain?

The kings of the earth set themselves,

and the rulers take counsel together,

against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying,

“Let us burst their bonds apart

and cast away their cords from us.”

He who sits in the heavens laughs.”

Psalm :1 – 4

Adapted from Evidence That Demands A Verdict by Josh McDowell. Available to purchase at ICM Books.