When you make a serious study of the Bible you will find that the devil is one that does a great job at charming people to sin. That is, he uses things of this world to get us to take our minds off Christ and get us to do evil instead of good. The question may be asked, “Why does the devil hate us?” I believe part of the answer is he sees us trying to do right and worship God when he desires to be worshipped. If we worship something or someone in this world we are in one aspect worshiping the devil since he is the prince of this world (Eph.2:2) and the god of this age (2 Cor.4:4). The devil will do whatever he can to get you to sin, to charm you away from God. Let us observe several “Charms of the Devil,” or tools he uses to distract us away from God.

(i)The Charm of Sex (Judges 16:5)​ Sex is one of the devil’s strongest charms. God put in man and woman the desire to be intimate, but God reserved such for the marriage bed (Heb.13:4). The devil perverts sext to move us away from God. Lust instead of love leads one to act on this charm. However, consider how lust can cost one. It cost Samson his eyes, then his life. It cost David more than he could ever imagine. The devil does a masterful job at tempting people to use sex in a way God did not intend.

(ii)The Charm of Money (Josh.7​) Achan saw something he wanted and, although he knew it was wrong, he took it. In Acts 5, Ananias and Sapphira lied about money they contributed. In Matt.19 the rich young ruler allowed money to motivate him more than his love for God. The devil seeks to distract us with shiny things of this world. If our mind is on treasures here, then we are not putting our treasures in heaven (Matt.6:19-21).

(iii)The Charm of Power (Matt.20:20-21)​ James and John’s mother sought for them a powerful position in Christ’s kingdom. She did not understand His kingdom was a spiritual one. There is something about power that can distract a person. We all want to feel important and feel like we have some power. This can lead one away from God and lead to arrogance. Absalom sought to kill his own father for the power of being king of Israel. One must be on guard against this charm of the devil.

(iv)The Charm of Escape​ Some seek to escape the troubles of life by getting drunk, high, or emotionally shut down in some way. Have we ever stopped to consider this charm and distraction of the evil one? Noah and Lot are two Bible examples of drunkenness that should show us that this charm can have dire consequences. I Pet.5:8 Peter warns us to be “sober.” Why? Lest the devil devour us when we are not on guard. When one’s mind is filled with intoxicants, one’s defenses are lowered, inhibitions are lowered and people do that which they never thought they would do.

(v)Let us be on Guard Against Such Charms!​ Don’t be distracted by the evil one! Let us be on guard against the wiles of the devil and not let him take advantage of us (2 Cor.2:11).

Question: What proof do we have that we can trust the Bible for everything it says. The Bible has been handed down so many times. The translation has been changed and everybody knows when you're passing on information the meaning never comes back the way it originated. One word changed can change the whole meaning of the passage. The Bible was written so long ago how do we know its meaning is still the same and how do we know it's not just another manmade project.

Answer: The proof that you ask about is found in many places. First, there is archaeology. Archaeologists have uncovered evidence in many places and from across many centuries about many different aspects of the Bible. For example, at one time skeptics doubted whether the Hittites, which are mentioned only briefly and with little detail in the Genesis account, actually ever existed at all. Eventually archaeological discovery in Asia Minor uncovered an entire civilization, with their distinctive culture, language and history. The simple biblical references were found to be representative of a people who settled and traded throughout the entire ancient Near East in the time of Abraham and the other patriarchs. Many biblical cities have been uncovered and excavated to reveal distinctive events such as destruction layers which coincide with the biblical story of the Exodus from Egypt and capture of many of the cities of ancient Canaan in the books of Joshua and Judges. Many other such things are well attested in both the literature of other peoples and from excavation activities. For example, during the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC, the book of Jeremiah (with 2 Chronicles and 2 Kings) represents the fall of the surrounding cities while Jerusalem lay under siege. In the excavation of the city of Lachish, the so-called "Lachish letters" were found, which detail the gradual capture of the towns precisely as Jeremiah and the books of history describe. Furthermore, it mentions some who were "weakening the hands of the people" in the midst of the siege, which is precisely the charge leveled against the prophet Jeremiah in the book by his name. There are many other things, far too numerous to mention here, which establish the general tenor of the biblical writings as recording genuine history. Further, as to the fact that the Bible has been handed down to us in the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament through many hands and many centuries, let it be noted that the Bible is the best attested ancient book in the entire world. There are literally thousands of copies of both the OT and the NT in their original languages which have come down to us - some of them extremely ancient. For example, many copies of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Hebrew manuscripts of OT books) go back to the first century before the time of Jesus, others perhaps even a century earlier than that. If we may trust that we have the works of Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, and the host of other ancient writers whose materials are not nearly so well attested, why would we not also be able to believe that we have the precise words of Christ and his apostles, as well as those of Moses and the Old Testament prophets? As to whether the words were changed in the process of time and transmission to our day, you must remember that the transmitters (scribes) of ancient times were extraordinarily careful, believing that a curse from heaven was upon the one who would change even a single word of Holy Scripture (see Deut. 4:2; 12:32; Matt. 5:18; Rev. 22:18, 19). But since mistakes did occasionally occur because of oversights and writing errors, it was the hundreds of other copies of the scripture that acted as a countermeasure to assure the mistakes could be corrected. This process of establishing the original text has come to be called "the science of textual criticism." The translation process itself is really the most convincing part. Think of all the translations there are out there - literally hundreds of different ones in the English language alone. Take a few translations and compare them side by side. You know what happens? You come up with very little difference between them. Most only differ in the different ways of saying the exact same things!

The ultimate answer is YES, we can definitely trust the Bible.