history and science; then, unexpectedly, the stroke of a pick or the
turn of a shovel uncovers some startling witness of its exact truth
and the excuseless folly of those who deny it.
The fourteenth chapter of Genesis has been set aside by the critics
as historically worthless. The excavations in Babylon have brought
to light a tablet with the name of Arioch, the fourth king mentioned
in that chapter, stamped upon it.
The statement in Exodus that Pharaoh forced the Children of Israel
while building his treasure cities to make bricks without straw, has
been treated as a fable. The treasure chambers themselves have been
found, the rooms divided by brick partitions eight to ten feet
thick--and great quantities of these bricks _made without straw_.
Luke says that Sergius Paulus was pro-consul of Cyprus. The critics
denied it and proved thereby the fallibility of the New Testament.
The homely but truth-telling spade, and without consulting the
critic, dug up some coins in the island of Cyprus itself, and on the
coins were stamped both the image and the name of Sergius Paulus.
Luke declares that Lysannius was tetrarch of Abilene; and again the
critics denied it and more than ever discounted Luke as an
historian.
Renan, the plausible and analytical infidel, read the record carved
on the stones of Baalbeck, and announced, openly, that Luke is
correct.
From the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, Tyre and Sidon; from the
trenches of Tel el Armana; by the key words of the Rosetta stone and
the black but speaking face of the Moabite stone; from newly
discovered papyri and parchment, and the mystic page of cracked and
crumpled palimpsest; from the rocks of earth, the depths of the sea
and the heights of heaven--and from the latest discoveries of
science, there arise amazing witnesses, which speak in tones that
cannot be hushed, with facts that cannot be denied, and bear
testimony beyond all possibility of dispute to the truth and
accuracy of the book; so much so, indeed, that such an one as Sir
John Herschell, the great astronomer, has said: "All human
discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more
and more strongly the truths contained in the Sacred Scriptures."
Consider the vitality of the book.
In less than ten years a text-book is out of date, a cyclopedia
worthless, and a library a cemetery of dead books and dead ideas;
but this book keeps living right on--keeps abreast of the times, has
a testimony for every day, and every day borrows its youth afresh as
from the womb of the morning.
Science has laughed it out of court. Two hundred and fifty years ago
Voltaire said: "Fifty years from now the world will hear no more of
the Bible." Self-elected scholarship has pronounced it out of date
and dead. Again and again its funeral services are held. Kind and
condescending eulogiums are uttered over its past history and its
good intent. With considerate hands it is lowered into its grave.
The _resquiescat in pace_ is solemnly pronounced and lo! before the
critical mourners have returned to their homes it has risen from the
dead, passed with surprising speed the funeral coaches, and is
found--as of yore--in the busy centres of life, thundering against
evil, revealing the secrets of the heart, offering consolation to
the sorrowing, hope to the dying, and flashing forth from its
quivering, vital pages the wonders of coming glory.
While copies of the classics--Virgil, Zenophon, Caesar, Sophocles,
Pindar and Martial--are to be counted by a few thousands, and are
cast aside by students as soon as they have graduated, and are
forgotten in a twelvemonth, this Bible goes on printing every year
millions of copies in all languages and dialects of earth; so far
from casting it aside, when once read, men take it up and read it
again and again, study it through life, dig into it as for hid
treasure, and make it the pillow on which to lay their dying head.
With each succeeding year the demand for it increases and voices are
continually crying--give us _The Book_.
It is the supreme book.
It is the book we need when the fire of sin gleams in our eye and
its poison burns in our veins. It is the book we need when the heart
is sore, when our soul is troubled, and when peace is no longer a
guest in our home.
It is the book we need; for from its pages alone do we behold the
light which shines from a Saviour's empty grave; from its pages
alone do we receive assurance of the resurrection of the dead, of
immortality and the life to come; and from its pages alone do we
hear the tender and welcoming words which seek to greet us and to
comfort us while we struggle here ofttimes beneath the burden's
growing weight, those words of heavenly music: "Come unto me all ye
that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest."
What author on earth would think his book dead and out of date if
year after year the publication of it taxed the printing presses of
the world? What author would deem his book out of date when the
voices of everywhere proclaimed it the book of books, and multitudes
unnumbered confessed that from its pages alone they found the way of
life and peace?
Such a book is neither out of date nor dead; and its throbbing
vitality tells of a life impulse and inspiration that are not of
man.
And, finally,
This book inspires men for God.
Every year books on morality and essays on conduct are written and
published. They get as far as a first edition and are never heard of
again; but this book, which binds all its parts about the person,
the work, the office and the glories of Christ, changes the life,
the character, the time and the eternity of men.
Place this book in the midst of the vilest and most abandoned
community of desperate and devilish men and, sooner or later, you
will hear a cry coming from the depths of sin and shame, bitter
cries of repentance and yearnings after God; and by and by that
community will be transformed, men will no longer be demon filled,
but possessed with a spirit of truth and love; and God will be found
to reign and rule in the midst.
Whatever there is of sweetness and truth and righteousness in the
world to-day; whatever there is that gives hope and comfort on earth
and holds men back from very madness and despair, is due directly
and indirectly to this book.
Take up a map and find the lands where sin and vice skulk in the
darkness; where virtue is honored and purity enthroned; go mark on
the map the lands where the men are the most manly and the women the
most womanly, and you will find it in those lands where the Bible is
exalted, not as the word of man, but, in deed and truth, as the Word
of God.
Find the men and women who know most of God, who have the deepest
consciousness of him in the soul, and who walk every day with the
assurance of his _real presence_--to whom the unseen becomes from
hour to hour the thing that is alone real--and who live as kings
above their prostrate passions--and they will be those who make this
book the supreme authority in their daily lives; who hear it when it
speaks to them as the very voice of God.
A book which thus inspires men _for_ God is, indeed, a book which,
by every law of logic, must have been inspired _by_ God.
From the evidence cited two things are apparent:
1. The Bible is not such a book as a man _would_ write if he
_could_.
2. The Bible is not such a book as a man _could_ write if he
_would_.
By these conclusions, therefore, the Bible is shown to be _not of
man_.
As the book is thus shown to be not of man--either by inclination or
ability; and as from the beginning to the end its object is to
glorify the unseen God in the revelation of his incarnate Son, then
this book _is of God_; and being the utterance of his mind and will,
is his Word; so that the statement of the apostle concerning it is
justified. It is to be received as he says: "Not as the word of man,
but as it is in truth, THE WORD OF GOD."
To him who so approaches it--who puts his shoes from off his feet as
on holy ground, and with the silence of expectant faith listens and
looks, it will disclose itself, speak to him, and so lay hold of the
inner recesses of the heart that he shall know he has been face to
face with God, has had glimpses of the delectable mountains and the
city foursquare that lies beyond; from henceforth he shall walk, not
as one in a vain show or in the mixing of darkness and light, but
where the night shineth as the day; where the road is no longer
paved with the stumbling stones of doubt, nor the signboards filled
with a guess, but where the way leadeth on and up--shining more and
more bright unto the perfect day.
Take up this book, O friend. Do not read it with a hurried glance.
Let thine eyes rest a while upon some single word, and if thou art
patient, it will bud and blossom and bloom and grow unto thee as a
tree of life; and the leaves shall be as medicine for the healing of
thy hurt. Take it into thy mouth and learn a lesson from the meadow
kine who chew the tender grasses, and turn them over, and chew them
again, till they have extracted sweetness and life therefrom. Chew
the words of this book over and over again (it is impossible to do
so with any other book), meditate upon the words (to meditate, to
reflect, are highest functions), mediate upon their meaning--upon
their direct and cognate meanings; let the thoughts they suggest
find full and free reaction in thy soul, and from some simple word
or phrase thou shalt draw the sweetness of divine love, and more and
more the consciousness that thou hast received into thine innermost
being very spirit and very life.
Read it on bended knee. Take up the words and breathe on them with
the warm breath of sincere desire to know their intent, and music
will come forth as from the fabled horn of old--music that shall
have in it all the hallelujahs and hosannas of the heavenly host.
If you will take this book to your heart, you will find it bread
such as kings' ovens never baked, water more crystal than that which
bursts from mountain springs, wine the like of which was never
pressed from purple grapes, meat which cattle on a thousand hills
never furnished, and fruit no man ever gathered in royal gardens--
the fruit of the Spirit. You will find it a lamp unto your feet and
a light unto your path, a hammer for breaking the flinty rocks by
the way, a fire that will burn out the stain of sin, and warm
benumbed fingers for quickened service in His Name.
Give it the first place in your life. You will want to hear from it
as the last thing when you go hence. The words of loved ones will be
sweet in your ear as you leave these mortal shores (if our Lord
Jesus Christ should not hasten his coming, you must go), but you
will want to hear its utterance above all the tones, even of those
you love, speaking the final word of hope and cheer to you.
Be very patient with it. It has great things to say to you--and you
will not always be fit to hear them. You will not always--at the
first--be able to understand them; but if you do not understand to
-day, to-morrow, or other morrows after that, it will speak to you
and you shall fully know. Perhaps it will wait till the unshed tears
are in your heart, and the moan the common ear has never heard--then
it will speak--and the words will fall into the sore place of the
soul, as though angel lips had touched it; it will wait, perhaps,
till the storm is high, and your frail craft (life's poor, frail
craft) is tossed as though it would go down in the whelming waters
(and the shore so far away), and then it will speak and say, "Peace
--be still," and in that driven life of yours shall be a great and
holy calm.
Do not attempt to cross-question it as though you hesitated to
believe all it said. To accept some parts and reject others will be
fatal to you. God does not reveal himself to those who doubt him. He
that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is the
rewarder of all them that diligently seek him. So must you approach
this book--with reverence and submissive faith; for this book, O
friend! is not the word of man, but in very truth--THE WORD OF GOD.