The Inspiration of Scripture

I really am honored to have been invited to this forum, and I am even amazed that I would be on the same platform with Dr. Haken. But surprising things happen along the way as you serve the Lord, and I'm grateful for the opportunity. It is good to see some familiar faces here tonight. I really didn't know if I would know anyone but Rob and Jeff that I met just a few weeks ago. But it turns out that I see a number of people that I know, and it's so good to see you here tonight. And I'm pleased to meet Steve Clevenger, who I have never met before, but you have had two of our former church members in your church in Warrington and. Teresa, Sholey and Joe have now moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, and Susan Rice, who just recently got married, right? So good to meet you and a delight to be here indeed. I find myself once again feeling that I must make a clarification and that is somewhere on the program I was promoted and awarded a doctor's degree and I don't have one. So just let's set the record straight on that. That happened to me last month at a conference in South Carolina, and I had reluctantly had to set the record straight there. Somehow I feel that it's necessary to do that. Well, I have been given the privilege of addressing the subject of the inspiration and infallibility of scripture. I can still remember in the 1970s when The book by Harold Lenzel, The Battle for the Bible, burst upon the evangelical scene in America. And that was followed up two or three years later by his book, The Bible in the Balance. And that was a bombshell to many people. Actually, other voices had been warning for a long time that there was a great deal of drift and decline among those who had formerly claimed to be believers in the inerrant, infallible, inspired word of God. But somehow the other voices did not seem to have the same stature as Harold Lenzel. And so when he sounded the alarm, it really did send shockwaves throughout America. And I suppose that in the providence of God, that may have been one of, if not the largest factor, In the conservative revival that we are still enjoying among the Southern Baptist Convention in America today, I'm sure Dr. Hagen probably has a better understanding of all of the different influences, but I think it's very clear that the Lord used him in that regard. And there are several chapters in those books that deal specifically with the decline in the Southern Baptist Convention over this issue of the Bible. However, what Dr. Linzel was doing was simply holding up a standard for the Word of God, as many of God's people have had to do down through the centuries, because the battle for the Bible is a never-ending job. In every generation, there are always attacks, frontal attacks, as well as subtle underminings of the Word of God. The details sometimes differ from place to place and time to time, but ultimately the issue is always the same. Will we believe that the Bible is the word that God has given or is this something else? And we need to recognize that this is indeed the battle for the heart and soul of the Christian faith. If we lose the Bible, we really lose Christianity. What's left? The facade is all that is left once the Bible has been lost. And so it's very important that we address this subject from time to time. I don't know whether I'm the right person to be addressing it tonight or not, but since that has been assigned to me by God's help and grace, that's exactly what I will endeavor to do. I'm a very simple man. I'm a pastor. I'm not a I'm not a seminary professor. I'm basically just an expositor of God's word, and so even when a topic is assigned to me, I'm a little bit out of my comfort zone. But having been assigned the topic, the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible, in my simple way, I saw two points. Number one, inspiration. Number two, infallibility. The inspiration of the Bible. Now, this conference, I'm told, and I'm delighted that it has an eye to the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession, which I dearly love and most of you, I think, have come as well to love it. And so the question is, did our Baptist forefathers believe in the inspiration of Scripture? I have the modern language version. I noticed you were handing out copies of the old English version. So whichever one you have tonight, I think all of the divisions are the same and the wording is going to be similar. But indeed, we find that there are a couple of references to the inspiration of the Bible in this confession. The first one is found in chapter one. Paragraph two and the last statement. After listing all of the books that make up the canon of Scripture in the Old and the New Testament, this statement is given. All these books are given by the inspiration of God to be the rule or standard of faith and life. We'll talk a little bit more about these books when we talk about the canon tomorrow, but there we find specifically a reference to the inspiration of Scripture And then in the next paragraph, number three, there is a negation. The books commonly called the Apocrypha were not given by divine inspiration and are not part of the canon or rule of scripture. So, on the one hand, we have in this statement a very clear definition of what our Baptist forefathers believed were the inspired words of God, namely the 66 books that we call the Bible. And then a clarification of several that were not. Of course, we're most interested in what does the Bible itself say? And the word inspiration is indeed a biblical word, and it's found, as I'm sure you know, in Second Timothy 316. And here Paul says, writing to Timothy, all scripture is given by inspiration of God. And is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God or every Scripture is given by inspiration of God. The question, of course, is what exactly does that mean? And the scholars tell us that this word inspiration literally means God breathed. All Scripture has been breathed by God. Breathed out by God, exhaled by God is really The idea here, and so this tells us what God has done to communicate with man. God, as we know, has communicated in various ways, creation and other manners of communication, but the most important communication outside of the giving of his own son, who is, of course, the greatest revelation of all. But second to His Son, the most important communication that God has given to mankind is His Word. He has breathed out revelation, truth, knowledge of Himself and of things that are eternal. He has breathed that out in a form that men can receive it and can benefit from it. Therefore, the doctrine of inspiration teaches us that the words of Scripture are spoken by God. God gave them. God spoke them. God said this. That's what inspiration means. The Bible is something that God has given, God has spoken, We can hold up the Bible and say, thus saith the Lord. This is what God has said. That's what inspiration means. Now. Let's consider some of the biblical evidences for this doctrine of inspiration. And I'll start with a few statements from the Old Testament, and then we'll take some others from the new. And I hope you'll turn with me in these statements, because I want you to to see how clear this is. And I'm going to start in Exodus chapter four, and I'm just selecting a few scriptures. We could select scores, we could select literally hundreds, but I've selected a few that I think will be very helpful to us tonight. And I want to say that my own heart was greatly blessed in doing this. My own faith in God's word was strengthened, though I've believed the Bible to be God's word ever since I was a boy. I was taught that by my parents and by the churches I was in, and I've had that drilled into me all of my life. And I've had times, of course, like all of us do, when perhaps I have wondered and questioned about it. But God has brought back to my heart again and again the truth of this. But it was just such a blessing to go through some of these and see how clearly the Bible itself declares that the Bible is the word of God. Look at Exodus chapter four. This is where God is calling Moses to his great mission, and Moses is objecting. And we read in verse 10, Then Moses said to the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since you have spoken to your servant, but I'm slow of speech and slow of tongue. So the Lord said to him, Who has made man's mouth or who has made the mute, the deaf, the seeing or the blind? Have not I the Lord? Now, therefore, go and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say." Now, there's a statement about the inspiration of Scripture, at least the inspiration of some Scripture, of what Moses was going to say. God said, I will be your mouth. I will teach you what you shall say. That sounds very much like what we call verbal inspiration. The words are the words of God, the very words. He gets better. But verse 13, he that is, Moses said, Oh, my Lord, please send by the hand of whomever else you may send. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and he said, is not Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he can speak well. And look, he is also coming out to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. Now, you shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and I will teach you what you shall do. So he shall be your spokesman to the people, and he himself shall be as a mouth for you, and you shall be to him as God. Now, what's so very helpful about this is it gives us a comparison, an analogy that we can all understand. We all understand, at least I think pretty well how it was that Aaron became the mouthpiece for Moses. Pretty simple. It's on the human level. We all operate on that level. And basically it's this. Moses told Aaron what he wanted him to say and Aaron said it. But don't you see that God says that's exactly the way I'm dealing with you, Moses. I'm going to tell you what to say. And you can say it to Aaron and Aaron can say it to Pharaoh. And by having that analogy, we can understand very clearly what this is all about. This is not that God floats some ambiguous thoughts out there and it's up to man to try to get a hold of them the best he can, and maybe he gets some theological concept that's rather vague, but God is trying to get across some kind of a thought. But this makes it pretty clear, doesn't it, that God gives the words. That sounds like verbal inspiration to me. I don't know what it looks like to you, but that's what it looks like to me. Oh, look at Deuteronomy chapter 18. Here's another time when Moses was defending. Well, not another time for defending, another time for Moses. And this time he's defending himself because his own sister and brother, Miriam and Aaron, have questioned his position that He seems to be taking this position of prominence and they're objecting to that. They think they should be considered equal to Moses in his position with the children of Israel. And so God called Miriam and Aaron and Moses together. And here's what he said. Verse six. Hear now my words. If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, make myself known to him in a vision. I speak to him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. I speak with him face to face, even plainly, and not in dark sayings. And he sees the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?" Again, clearly, God gave words to Moses. He met with him. Face to face, he spoke to him plainly and Moses received the very word of God. God gave to Moses his word. God inspired, God breathed out words to Moses, which Moses then passed on to the children of Israel. Look at Deuteronomy 18. What did I say? That one I called Deuteronomy. That was Numbers. I'm sorry. Numbers, chapter 12, verse 6. I'm sorry about that. Deuteronomy 18. I'll just read down through this one. Deuteronomy 18, 15. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren, him you shall hear. According to all you desired of the Lord your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, nor let me see this great fire any more, lest I die. And the Lord said to me, what they have spoken is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you, Moses, from among their brethren, and will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And it shall be that whoever will not hear my words, which he speaks in my name, I will require of him. That's pretty clear, isn't it? Now, we know that ultimately that prophet speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ, but it also talks about this matter of inspiration. The Bible is very clear. God gave the words. Jeremiah one. The prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah 1, verse 4, Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I sanctified you. I ordained you a prophet to the nations. Then said I, O Lord God, behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth. But the Lord said to me, Do not say, I am a youth, for you shall go to all whom I send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak." Verbal inspiration. Let me read Ezekiel 32, 1. You need not turn. And it came to pass in the twelfth year and the twelfth month, on the first day of the month, that the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh, king of Egypt. The word of the Lord came to me saying, Ezekiel heard the word of the Lord. Ezekiel heard words. Now, that is just one of scores of statements like that in the book of Ezekiel. I just basically opened my Bible to Ezekiel and put my finger down on the first one that I came to and use that one to cite tonight. But Ezekiel is just full of that. Almost every chapter has one or more statements just like that, the word of the Lord came to me saying, this is God's word, God's word, God's word over and over and over again, not only in Ezekiel, but in some of the other Old Testament prophets. My last Old Testament reference is Habakkuk chapter two. The prophet Habakkuk is under a burden, he tells us in verse one, but he's concerned because God does not seem to be speaking to him as clearly and quickly as he would like. But then notice this in chapter 2, verses 2 and 3, Then the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision, and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for the appointed time. Now, this is not only telling us that God gave the words, but it also tells us that those words often were written down. So not only the words that the prophets spoke were words that were given to them by God, but when those prophets recorded their words, as many of them did, and we wouldn't have a Bible if they didn't, then those written words were also the words of God. Furthermore, this tells us that some of this revelation came in the form of a vision. We're not quite sure exactly how that works. We do know that in some visions Men had a vision and they heard God speaking to them in the vision. I would take it that something like that is happening here. But whatever it is, the vision is not so nebulous that you can't write it down. And when you write it down, when Habakkuk wrote it down, It's something that another messenger can take and go with. He can run with it. He can take these words. He can declare these words. He can proclaim and preach these words because it is the very word of God. Sounds like verbal inspiration to me. Just a few New Testament statements. How the apostles in particular, Paul and Peter, viewed their own writings. 1 Corinthians 2, 6 and following. Paul said, however, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are coming to nothing, but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew, for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, eye has not seen nor ear heard. nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him. But God has revealed them to us through his spirit." That's helpful, isn't it? We get a little better idea here of how this thing works. Paul says, God has revealed them to us through his spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of man except the spirit of a man which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God except the spirit of God. Now, we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak. Not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but words, implied there, words which the Holy Spirit teaches. Comparing spiritual things with spiritual. Words which the Holy Spirit teaches. Verbal inspiration. Galatians 1, 11 and 12. Paul said, But I make known to you, brethren, that gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ." Where did Paul get his gospel? Where did he get his words? Where did he get his message? He got it from the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what he tells us. It's the Word of God. 1 Thessalonians 2 13. For this reason, we also thank God without ceasing, because when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us. What's that again, Paul? The word of God, which you heard from us. OK, I thought that's what you said. You welcomed it. Not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God. which also effectively works in you who believe. Paul makes pretty clear in that verse what he's got in mind, doesn't he? Twice he tells us, the word that I spoke to you was not the word of men, mine or anybody else's. It was the word of God. Peter, what do you think about all this? 1 Peter 1, 10 and 11 and 12. Of this salvation, the prophets have inquired and searched carefully who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when he testified before beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. Catch what he's saying here. This is the Old Testament prophets he's talking about now because this is before Christ. And who was in the Old Testament prophets? The Spirit of Christ. The Spirit of Christ was in them, giving them their knowledge, giving them the words which they spoke. Verse 12, To them it was revealed that not to themselves, but to us, they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. things which angels desire to look into. The gospel preached to you was preached by the power of the Holy Spirit. And it was the word of God, so much so that even angels want to get a better understanding of what Peter and Paul and other of the apostles were preaching to men in their day. Why? Because it is the word of God. And finally, 2 Peter 1.20-21, knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation or derivation or origin. No prophecy of Scripture is of any private origination. For prophecy never came by the will of man, never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spake or spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." That one is particularly helpful, and I'll take a little more time with it because it lays it out. There are two negatives and two positives in that text. From the negative standpoint, Peter tells us that no prophecy, no Scripture, no Scripture that is that has come to us by the word or the pens of the prophets came by human will. No man decided to do this. Nobody said of any any of the thing that that God's people consider to be scripture, anything that that's considered to be prophecy, none of that came because somebody said, I've got a good idea. I think I'll write something down. Human will. But it didn't come by human will or impulse, nor did it come from human understanding or opinion. That's not what it is from a negative standpoint. Well, what is it? It is, number one, that the prophets spoke what was given to them by God. And number two, the prophets were energized and guided by the Holy Spirit and what they spoke. Now, that's pretty plain, isn't it? You can't go away from these texts wondering what the Bible claims in regard to inspiration. You make sure not to believe it. That's between you and the Lord, and if the Bible is God's word, you're going to give an account to him someday for how you have received the revelation which he has given you about all things, including and maybe starting with the book, the nature of the book that he has given. But you'll have to decide whether you're going to believe this or not, but there's not much room for wondering what the Bible teaches about inspiration, is there? Pretty plain. Inspiration means scripture is the word of God. Point two, infallibility. The inspiration and infallibility of scripture. Does our Historic Baptist confession say anything about infallibility? Well, yes. Right out the gate. The very first statement. The Holy Scripture, chapter one, number one. The Holy Scripture is the all sufficient, certain and infallible rule or standard of the knowledge, faith and obedience that constitute salvation. All sufficient, certain, and infallible. That's what our Baptist forefathers believed about the Bible. Would that all men who call themselves Baptist today believe that as well. What does infallible mean? It means without error. Infallibility, inerrancy are basically synonyms. And let me give you three quotes about the meaning of infallibility. The first one is from B.B. Warfield. And he says, Inspiration is that extraordinary, supernatural influence exerted by the Holy Ghost on the writers of our sacred books, by which their words were rendered also the words of God and therefore perfectly infallible. End quote. Warfield, I think correctly, ties together inspiration and fallibility of basically what he's saying is if inspiration is true, then infallibility must be true as well. If the book we call the Bible was breathed out by God. Then it must be inerrant. Warfield also put this in a way that may be helpful when he said by which their words the men that the Holy Spirit chose for this task, by which their words were rendered also the words of God. Now, in the scriptures that I read earlier, it may have sounded like I believe that God just basically dictated all the words of scripture to the authors. It's obvious that he did that in some cases. That's not totally absent from what was done. But I think it's clear that in many cases that is not what happened. In many cases, these men were writing what to their to their experience was their words. But it turns out that they were supervised, guarded, guided. and protected by the Holy Spirit of God so that the product turns out to be both the word of man, but also the word of God. And as it is the word of God, it must therefore be the inerrant word of God. Now, this, of course, is where a lot of the controversy comes in, because all men are sinners and all men make mistakes and all men embrace errors of one kind or another. If we only knew what they were, we could change them, but we don't even know it. So, how can God give His Word in an errant and fallible way through fallible, errant men is the question. The answer, I think, is God can do it because God is God. It's almost like asking how could God send His Son And he'd become a man, part of Adam's race, and yet be a sinless man, a perfect man, a holy man. How is that possible when the whole human race has been plunged into sin? And we understand that a little bit better because we have more details. We know about the virgin birth. We know a little bit more about the nature of Christ. In the case of Scripture, we don't know all the details of how God did it, but there are enough statements in Scripture to make it clear that this is what God did and this is the product. This is the result of it. And however God did it, I don't know all the details, but I'm confident that he has given us his word and he's given it to us in an infallible, inerrant form. That much I'm confident of. That's what the Bible says, and I believe it. My second quotation is from Robert Raymond and his new systematic theology of the Christian faith. I find this a very helpful systematic theology. And he says, The Bible is true, devoid of and incapable of teaching falsehood or error of any kind in all that it intends to affirm. The Bible is true, devoid of and incapable of teaching falsehood or error of any kind in all that it intends to affirm. Now, he throws that last statement in there, I think. Because, of course, the critics are going to pounce on everything they can, and they will pounce on statements in Scripture that are not intended in the way that they want to make them intended and say, see there, there's an error, there's a discrepancy. And I think we all have to understand that when God communicated his word, he communicated it through men in their vocabulary, their language, the idioms of their day, in a way that the people of that day would understand what he was talking about. And we wouldn't hold any other ancient writer to a different standard than allowing him that kind of slack. It's only when it comes to the Bible that we find this kind of criticism. So what do you mean by this? If I said today we had a beautiful sunset, everybody knows what I mean. That's a pretty subjective statement. Nobody would jump on that and say, ah, don't you know the sun doesn't set? The earth goes around the sun. You fool, you just made a mistake. Well, I wasn't intending to affirm something about the solar system, I was just commenting on the beauty of the ending of the day. Even if I wanted to be a little more precise or a little more scientific, perhaps and say. Sunset today was at six fifty nine p.m. More objective statement, but still. Sun set, come on, the sun doesn't set. Yes, it does in our experience, and we all talk that way and we all know what we mean. And when I speak that way, you know what I'm saying. And the Bible talks that way. And let's understand that when the Bible says something like that. Take it for what we know it means and don't try to be a. Critic, I find in the area of. Criticism. It pretty much seems to be that people who know the Lord and believe the scripture can always find very satisfying answers to these criticisms and people who don't never can. And it just seems like there's a divide there that will never be bridged. Almost makes you think that maybe something like This is going on. The natural man receive it, not the things of the Spirit of God. Neither can he know them. They are foolishness unto him because they are spiritually discerned. Almost makes you think something like that may be going on. My third statement is from Wayne Grudem. He says, The inerrancy of scripture means that scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact. The Bible always tells the truth concerning everything that it talks about. Now, that's what we mean by inerrancy. Does the Bible claim to be inerrant? Well, there are several reasons to believe that it does. We start with the nature of God. Titus 1.2 says, God who cannot lie. If that's the nature of God, God cannot lie, then any communication God gives us has to be as true and holy, as righteous as he is. Sometimes, as we've already said, the communication came by exact words. One example of that is Revelation 2.1 that I won't take time to read. Sometimes it came in dreams or visions, as when God spoke to Ananias after Saul's conversion and told him to go talk to Saul. That was a vision. Acts chapter 9, verses 10 and following. Sometimes this word of God came through the writers of Scripture because of their own personal experiences. Here's how the Apostle John opens his first epistle. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled concerning the word of life. The life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. That which we have seen and heard, we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us." And so forth. John and the other apostles were in many cases just simply writing about what they had experienced. That which they knew by personal experience. And I don't suppose, I don't know how It all worked and what was going on in their minds. But I don't suppose that when John sat down and wrote what he wrote about Christ and his life, his ministry, particularly in the Gospel of John, I don't know that John was conscious that the Holy Spirit is speaking to me now. I think in his mind he was just writing his own knowledge, his own personal experience. But because we know that these men chosen by God to communicate his word, were born along by the Holy Spirit, guarded and guided by the Holy Spirit. We know that the Holy Spirit shaped John's record to make sure that he remembered everything correctly. In fact, Jesus promised that he would. You remember that, don't you, in John 14 and John 16? He said so. When the Holy Spirit comes, He will cause you to remember those things which I said unto you. The apostles were promised that. The Holy Spirit does that. That's what Jesus said. That's what Peter said. And John is just writing what he remembers. Some of it even, interestingly, came to them by secondhand communication. One example, the opening words of Luke, And as much as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us, Just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us. It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the beginning. Luke, how did you get this perfect understanding of all things from the beginning from the guys who were there? They saw it, they heard it, they told me, I'm going to write it down and tell you secondhand. You say, boy, that's getting us out on thin ice. Not when the Holy Spirit is involved, not when Almighty God is involved. I conclude with the London Confession again. Ultimately, you believe these things by faith. And that's what our confession says. Paragraph 5, the last statement. At the same time, however, we recognize that our full persuasion and assurance of its, that is the Bible's, infallible truth and divine authority is the outcome of the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts. That's really what it boils down to. It's good to know what the Bible teaches, it's good to be reminded, it's good to see evidences, it's good to be reminded of the incredible internal consistency of the Bible written over a span of 1600 years, 40 different authors, three different languages. Incredible historical accuracy and prophetic fulfillment and doctrinal consistency that all testify to a miraculous origin, a divine author. That's pretty difficult to explain on a purely human plane, but ultimately it boils down to this. Jesus said, My sheep hear my voice. And God's people do. They hear the voice of God in the Bible, in the word of God, and they know it to be the word of God. Because God speaks to them, they say, that's too subjective, that's too hard to nail down. That's the way God did it. And that's why I preach with hope and confidence. I preach God's word. I'm not the greatest preacher, but that doesn't matter. I preach the greatest Christ and I preach the greatest book. And I know when I'm preaching this book that I'm preaching the very word of God and that it has the power to change men's hearts. It has power to convince the skeptic. It has power. I've seen this in every pastor, every preacher seen this happen. I've seen people who were skeptical suddenly changed and they became believers. It's unbelievable to watch that happen, but it happens over and over and over. And it's because it's God's word. It's his power. I'm thinking about this Indian man who came to our church a few months ago, Hindu. But he was dissatisfied with his Hinduism and he came to our service. And he'd only come a time or two and he figured out that everything about Christian theology or Christian doctrine, he could probably get out of the hymn book. He said, where can I buy one of those hymn books? And he took it home and started reading those hymn books, that hymn book. And he says he's a believer. He's become a Christian. He's heard the word of God. It spoke to his soul. It showed him that this is the truth. And I can't explain that. You can't explain that. You'll never convince the skeptic of that. But that's the nature of it. That's God's inspired and infallible Word. Praise His holy name.