How Are We To Believe?

My question is how are we to believe? A while back I remember a missionary from another religion saying that 10 million people can’t be wrong in their belief in (his religion), to which I responded, “Well going with that logic, 1 billion people can’t be wrong about Islam.”

Q. Ever since I found your site I have kept visiting it for the wealth of Bible material it presents. It definitely has some good stuff.

My question is how are we to believe? A while back I remember a missionary from another religion saying that 10 million people can’t be wrong in their belief in (his religion), to which I responded, “Well going with that logic, 1 billion people cant be wrong about Islam.” In the case of his religion the members “feel” their religion is correct. Most people who follow other religions feel that they are correct. They might even get dreams and visions telling them their religion or church is right.

The only conclusion one can draw from this is that you cannot base belief in feelings. So how are we to believe then. Logic? Knowledge? Just because? With something as important as our salvation, are we supposed to believe not using our feelings? I hope you are able to provide some insight on this.

A. You’re right. Feelings are almost never good indicators for decision making. And 10 million or even 1 billion people can be wrong. But there is one fool proof way to tell if you’re right about what you believe. It turns out that the Bible is the only so-called Holy Book that authenticates itself, and the way it does that is through prophecy. Isaiah 42:8-9 is one of the clearest passages on this issue.

“I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols. See, the former things have taken place and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you.”

Here the Lord is telling us that everything He said would happen in the past has happened. And He’s already told us the things the things that will happen in the future. Only someone who knows the end from the beginning can do that. It’s the way the Lord authenticates Himself for us.

Begin your study by comparing Old Testament prophecy to history. It’s not as hard as you think. For example, Daniel 11 contains over 100 historically validated prophecies in the first 35 verses. Just compare it to a 200 year period of world history that begins with the death of Alexander the Great and ends with the arrival of the Roman Empire on the world scene. To make it even easier, use a study Bible that has already made the comparison in its study notes and confirm their accuracy with a world history text book.

You’ll come away, as most others have, convinced that believing in the God of the Bible is not only possible, it’s the only logical thing to do. You’ll also conclude that if He could predict all those things correctly, it makes sense to believe that He’s accurate in His predictions of our future as well.

Having done that, you’ll have a frame of reference against which to compare the claims of all the other religions out there.