Derek Prince - How Can We Trust The Bible
Now you might say, and very reasonably, but the men that wrote the Bible, were in many cases very weak and fallible. And the Bible even records a lot of their sins. I think that’s a mark of the Bible’s accuracy that it records the sins of the people who wrote it. A lot of people today would hush up their sins and not expose them and try to present themselves as infallible. No author of the Bible does that. Even David who was the author of most of the psalms, his serious sins are recorded for all to read.
So then, how can the Bible be infallible if the people that wrote it were fallible? There’s a beautiful answer given given to that question in Psalm 12, verse 6, one simple verse. Psalm 12:6: The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. That’s a little picture of how people used to purify metal. They would build a furnace of clay, light a fire in it, and then put the metal there to be purified. So you’ve got three things in that picture. You’ve got the furnace of clay, which is the human instrument, just clay. You’ve got the fire, which is the Holy Spirit, which purifies the silver, which is the message.
So that tells us how fallible men and women can be the channels to produce an inspired and authoritative Word of God. Let me say that again. The clay is the human vessel. The fire is the Holy Spirit. The silver, purified seven times, absolutely pure, is the message of God. And the number seven in the Bible links us to two things: the Holy Spirit and perfection. And perfection is by the Holy Spirit. So, the Bible, though it came through vessels of clay, weak, fallible, sinful men and women, has been purified seven times by the fire of the Holy Spirit. It is totally reliable.