WAR ON GOD AND THE BIBLE

How the world came into existence, whether by the immediate creating word of God, “Let there be”, or by what is called evolution — with this we are brought face to face. How man came to exist, whether according to Genesis, “And God said, Let Us make man”, or whether there has been a development, a growth covering the millions of years, so that from a bit of jelly (protoplasm) we have risen and risen and developed and come to be what we are today — is a question that is openly propounded, and I feel it behoves every minister called by grace and sent to preach, to set the trumpet to his mouth and blow an alarm with regard to these things.

“Science, falsely so-called”, as the Apostle Paul speaks, is now very loud in its utterances and has become most daring in its opposition to God. It starts of course with cutting away from us the divine inspiration of Holy Scripture. That inspiration is denied, and when a man denies the inspiration of this Book he is at once adrift and where he will go, how he will end, rests with God. The state today of this nation and of the whole world is terrible, and no wonder that the name of God no longer inspires reverence; no wonder that the inspired writers are regarded as ignorant men and as writing accordingly, and that Jesus Himself is accused of being a Jew speaking under the influence of Jewish prejudices. For there being no inspiration there can be no proper regard for the Bible and no belief attaching to the writings. And for you, my dear friends, especially for you young people, I have a strong feeling of sympathy. What God is to do with this nation is not for me to say, but we have this before us: “Shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?” He has given us in this our beloved nation the greatest of blessings — the gift of the Reformation founded on His holy Word. He gave a race of ministers mighty in the Scriptures. But the Reformation is now forgotten or derided, and the Reformers and Puritans, mighty in the Scriptures, have passed away, and we are in an exceedingly low condition.

Now as I see these things, there is a war being made on God and His inspired Word. Men in high places, religious teachers, are not afraid to speak of Him as if He were one of themselves, and of His Word as in parts unhistorical, contrary to fact, and therefore not to be relied on. Against this unbelieving attitude I speak to you, however feebly, and I take up the following positions: —

1. First, I start with this, that this Bible is inspired, that it contains what the apostle speaks of to Timothy — “all Scripture”, and that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God”, What is signified by inspiration is stated thus by Scripture itself: “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (II Pet. i. 21). That is, the penmen of this Book were so instructed by the Holy Ghost as to express the very words of God; not to write in their own words the thoughts suggested to them, but to write the words given them (II Sam. xxiii. 2; Acts i. 16). And truly if they were, as the anti-Scripturist says, “ignorant men”, how necessary was it that they should have the very words given them to write and not be left to express thoughts in their own language! Who could depend on the Bible if it were but a transcription of thoughts, and the words left to the choice of the writers? Here we stand this morning: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine” — may we never despise doctrine; “for reproof’ — God grant we may never turn our ears from reproof; “for correction, for instruction in righteousness” — how a man should live and how a sinner should be righteous; “that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works” (II Tim. in. 16).

2. My second position is, that the infinite God created heaven and earth and all that therein is, and the sea and all that is therein; that He rules in heaven and earth; that there is nothing hid from His gaze, nothing free from His control, nothing moving of itself absolutely; that God is “God only wise”, the “I AM THAT I AM”.

3. My third position is, that this God did for about thirty-three years walk on the earth in our own nature; that the Man Jesus is this God and that He is now in heaven in that same nature, even our own nature. And this God speaks in our text and says to His enemies: “If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins”.

Now we are brought face to face with two facts, namely, God speaks, and there are men who speak against Him and against His Word. You cannot open your newspaper today without seeing that His name, His Word, His work, His glory are trampled under foot; and you, with myself, must more or less perceive that there is an imminent danger to us if we are left at all to receive the things which are taught by them of the Scriptures. Between us, as we hope, believers in the Word and in the Being of God, and the scientist preaching his “science falsely so-called”, there is a great gulf. He cuts this Book away as to its inspiration; we believe it to be inspired. He derides creation work; we believe in it. He says we men have always ascended and are ascending. We say we descended in the Fall terribly; that man was made by the immediate operation of God in the image of God, his body formed out of the dust and his soul breathed into that body; so he became an immortal person, “a living soul”. Sin has destroyed the life of the soul, but not the immortality of its being; and the life of the body is destroyed but for a time, for the day is coming when God will raise the bodies of both the righteous and the wicked. I say, there is a great gulf between us and those who deny the inspiration of Scripture and its testimony.

Now this Man who walked on the earth a poor Man, a broken-hearted Man, but a Teacher, an anointed Preacher of righteousness (Isa. lxi. 1), having the law of God in His heart (Psa. xl. 8) which He came to obey and fulfil — this Man is the only begotten Son of God, and He is the Word, You will find the same Person is spoken of as the Creator. In the first chapter of Genesis you read: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”. In his Gospel the Apostle John says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word as with God, and the Word was God... All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” In the Hebrews the apostle says: “God hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed Heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds”. And of the same Person it is said: “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only-Begotten of the Father ), full of grace and truth”. And again: “No man hath seen God at any time” — that is just what the Lord said to Moses, “No man can see Me and live” — “the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him”. His oneness with the Father, and therefore His eternity, are expressed in this Gospel by the Lord Jesus Himself. When answering Philip’s request, “Show us the Father”, He said: “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. We are so one, one in nature, only distinguished in Person; so one that you cannot see Me without seeing the Father.” The question of apprehending and seeing Them both is another question which belongs to experience, but the fact, the truth, is that you cannot see Jesus Christ without seeing His eternal Father. And the Spirit is in Them both and proceeds from Them both.

Now it is a convenient point here for me to ask you and myself, “Have we seen God in the Man Christ Jesus?” Do not forget that in Scripture it is recorded that the Jews constantly opposed Him. They saw Him, and did not see Him; they heard Him and did not understand His words. They perverted and wrested them, and of Him they said, “He hath a devil”. They said He was “a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners”. If you have a different, a right opinion of Him, if I have; if instead of regarding Him as a mere man, as an evil man and an evil-doer, we see Him to be almighty God, what monuments of grace we are! The badger’s skin of His sacred humanity, if I may use the word here, covers the glorious Person of God, the only begotten Son of the Father. We believe that this great Being, eternal, on whom all things hang as it is written, “Upholding all things by the word of His power”, the eternal Son of God, was made Man by the miraculous operation of the Holy Ghost; that He was “made of a woman, made under the law”. So that when we read of the Lord Jesus, we read of almighty God in our nature. Unitarians say we worship a man; but if you have ever seen the eternal Deity that is in the Man Christ Jesus, you then saw and worshipped God in that Man, that He was and is the I AM THAT I AM who created heaven and earth. Though complex, His Person is one. The naked rays of Deity, the beams which would have been unbearable to us, are bearable in Him. Do we believe it? “Except ye believe that I am He or, as it is in the original Greek, for if you believe not that I AM, ye shall die in your sins.”

4. My next position is, that this Person speaking in the text, the almighty God, the I AM, “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Lamb as it had been slain”, rules in heaven and earth. Yes, you, myself, and all creatures are under His eye, His control, His guidance. The Apostle John saw into heaven and heard a voice saying, “Who is worthy to open the book and to loose the seals thereof?” The book was in the hand of the Father, and had regard to the covenant of grace and all arrangements of that covenant. “Who is worthy to approach the Father and take out of His hand that book which is sealed with seven seals?” And John said there was found no man worthy to do it, and he wept. But an elder said to him, “Weep not, behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed to open the book”. And John said, “I beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne . .. stood a Lamb as it had been slain”; and He approached His Father whose equal He was, and took the book, being worthy; and He loosed the seals and looked therein. Then began the dispensation that is continued to this day, and will continue to the end of time. The seven seals were opened, and as you read in that wonderful Book of Revelation, different providences occurred — storms, earthquakes, thunders, lightnings, evils, scorching fire, all kinds of preserving providences over the church and judgments on her enemies. May we not disregard them. They occurred as the Son of God loosed and open the seals. Then the trumpets were blown and the vials were poured out. Since that day, I say, there have been the trumpets sounded and the vials one by one poured out. How near are we to that word — or are we right in the midst of it? — that after the sixth vial was poured out there came from the bottomless pit three unclean spirits like frogs? “They are the spirits of devils working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world” (Rev. xvi. 13, 14). Very solemn! And men today, religious teachers, hold doctrines of devils which are coming forth from their lips.

(to be continued)

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