CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS
as taught by
Dr. E. C. Bragg
II. THE BIBLE: AS GOD'S DIVINE REVELATION OF
HIMSELF AND HIS WILL TO MAN
(Its inspiration)
A. External Evidences
1. Fulfilled Prophecy
2. The Indestructibility of the Bible
3. The Influence of the Bible
B. Internal Evidences
1. The Moral Sublimity of the Bible
2. The Historical Accuracy of the Bible
3 The Scientific Accuracy of the Bible4.The Marvelous Unity of the Bible
CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS
THE BIBLE
PART II
I. INTRODUCTION:
In studying evidences of the Divine Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, we are not merely arraying facts to prove inspiration. We may be strengthening our faith in their Divine authority to speak to us in matters spiritual and moral, but we are not trying to establish the Scriptures. They are established. The Bible has already proven its Divine origin. The very fact that the Bible is still here, exerting world wide influence and convicts the heart is a proof of Its source. Someone has said, "You don't have to defend a lion, just turn it out of its cage and it will defend itself." So the Scriptures; give them freedom of circulation, and preach them, and they will defend themselves.
This study is for the purpose of collecting evidences of the Divine Inspiration of the Scriptures that we might see what a "sure foundation is laid for our faith in His most excellent Word." It is very much like the surveyor taking the dimensions of the solid rock upon which he is to build his house. In this study we are but sounding the foundation, and measuring the rock. The Bible being established in History and Literature, it remains for the scoffer and denier to prove that the bible is uninspired, rather than for us to prove that it is inspired. To do this, he must prove that inspiration is absurd; impossible, and that the Bible's claims to inspiration are false, He must show that there never has been any such Divine revelation given, nor is it possible. That is a job no man is capable of performing. I have noted in every argument I have ever read against the Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, that the argument revolves around man's inability to grasp higher things than himself, to reach above his own level; and I readily grant that; but they never concede the possibility of God revealing Himself. The measuring rod they use is human, and they try to measure God by human standards. It isn't a question of how high man can reach, but is God able to make Himself known. The question is, "How great is your God?" Granted an intelligent moral loving God Who is Interested in all that He has made, and you must believe in a revelation. It is inconceivable that an intelligent God who is ruler over all this vast universe, would not make known His laws and will to the moral intelligent creatures fashioned by Himself.CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS - THE BIBLE - PART II Page 2
Outside of the plain weapons of ridicule, and denial, coming from profane, blasphemous hearts, molded from pure hatred of the holy and sacred, there are three stock arguments used by skeptics and infidels through the years. They have been exploded and shot so full of holes until a very little consideration of them would show them to be untenable; yet if you speak to an infidel or skeptic, he trots out the same old arguments like a parrot and rolls his eyes wisely, and like a rote, gives the same "wise answer" of a few hundred years ago and calls it "modern thought," which makes the belief in the inspiration of the Bible impossible. "Scholarly research has shown the Bible as false." "Modern Science Is against the Bible," But tell him to name them and he gets vague, and finally lamely gives the same do geared, dusty, age-old arguments.
THE THREE MOTH-EATEN ARGUMENTS:
1. Defective morality of the Old Testament.
2. Inconsistency and discrepancies of the Sacred Writers. Alleged Contradictions.
3, Scientific and historical inaccuracies of the Bible.
The first and the last of these we shall consider in detail as we progress with our course of studies. Only to say here concerning the morality of the Old Testament -- The New Testament professes to make no new standards of morality. There never has been, nor never shall be a higher code of ethics, and higher moral standard than laid down in the Ten Commandments. After 35OO years, they are still in vogue wherever men value their lives, their property or wish to live above brutality. Every moral code fit to be observed by man Is patterned after that Decalogue written by the finger of Almighty God. Ten Canadian lawyers in a meeting agreed that they could write a better code. They set about the task, but each as ho named a rule of conduct was answered, "But that is in the Ten in concise clear cut, machine gun staccato, the ten commandments run the gamut of man's moral obligations to his God and his fellowmen. One man's caviling against the Bible was "The Ten Commandments carry no law against lying." He evidently hadn't read the ninth commandment, "Thou shalt not bear false witness."
The great principle of the Bible--love toward God as the Supreme passion of our life and love for neighbor comparable to love for ourselves is not a New Testament revelation, but was first given by Moses. So with patience under injury, remembrance of the poor, and parental respect are all under the Old Testament law; likewise, property rights, and sanctity of home.CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS - THE BIBLE - PART II Page 3
The common ground of complaint against the Inspiration of the Old Testament (though I find that without this complaint they have no greater love for the New Testament) is that the God of the Old Testament is a vindictive, tribal, cruel God of lusts, hatred, and bloodshed; showing as they allege that The Old Testament was written by man In a savage state having not evolved perfectly his Idea of God. But they forget that the same God of the Old Testament which brought the flood, brings and controls great earthquakes, floods and physical catastrophes of today. Those are just the ones that are recorded In Sacred Writ for Spiritual reasons.
As for the complaint of the wars sanctioned by God, as the driving out and killing off of the Canaanites, the purpose rather than being immoral was a moral cause. It was for their extreme wickedness. God used Israel as a scourge. Any criticism of God shows here only a low moral conception of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man, a low estimate of the cost of sin. As for the drunkenness of Noah, the cruelty of Sarah, the incest of Lot, the frauds of Jacob and the adultery of David, they were not commanded of God, neither are those things written for our example but for warnings, It would be strange indeed if the Bible didn't speak plainly upon morals. The plainness of the Bible in its language is criticized, while the doctors’ magazines, and the Shakespearean frankness is accepted as necessary.
There remains for consideration the second objections to the inspiration of the Bible, which we shall not have occasion to deal with in full until later In the discussion. We shall, therefore, briefly consider it here. This is that there are inconsistencies, and contradictions in the Bible which prove that it isn’t infallible. In spite of the fact that every possible alleged contradiction has been answered fully and proven nonexistent, still antagonistic infidelity them forth to combat again and again though they be vanquished never so often.
1. The so-called inaccurate inscription over the cross of Christ, was better called Inscriptions rather than singular, for it was written in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.
Matt.---"This is Jesus - King of the Jews."
Mark --"The King of the Jews."
Luke -- "This is...... the King of the Jews."
John ---"This Is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews."
It is evident that one is quoted from the Latin, another from the Greek, and another from the Hebrew, while John gave the whole inscription, When considering them all they do not contradict each other, but rather agree.
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Instead of the proof against inspiration, they prove the contrary. It shows there was no collusion, but independent witnesses. Whoever reads two independent histories which used the same words or even the same set of facts in describing a battle or event. If they did we would know they copied, but the very divergency many times proves against any plagarism, but both can be accurate histories.
2. The age-old contest over a whale swallowing a man...For a long time a stock case, but the smartest of the scoffers keep still now about that. First, It doesn’t say It was a whale, but a fish, and it says ‘God prepared it” f or that occasion; so that if there never had been a fish able to swallow a man nor ever has been one since, still I could believe Jonah for I know my God well enough to know if He could make all the first fish of the sea, He hasn’t lost any of His power since then and could do it again. I personally saw a fish that was caught off the coast of Miami, Florida, after a long battle. It was about 70 feet long, not a whale, and definitely a deep sea fish, because of its very thick skin and small eyes. I saw it on a barge in the harbor with its mouth propped open. It could swallow a horse; a man could stand in its throat, much go down it.
3. The grasshoppers of Lev. 11:21--They say the Bible teaches that grasshoppers have but four legs. They don’t read closely enough. “Every flying, creeping thing that goeth upon its fours, which has legs above its feet, (or fours) to leap withal upon the face of the ground.” They just do as they usually do, leave off reading too soon. It does not say they have only four. Think of missing the grandeur of the Book, and setting the mighty influence of the Bible over against a couple of grasshopper legs.
There are many more such objections, but they follow the same pattern as those given for illustration. There is another class which makes much of the difference in the various versions, the errors of copies, etc. Some years ago they made bold to claim to have found 30,000 various readings. Yet Cardinal Wiseman says, “In all this mass although every attainable source has been exhausted; although the fathers of every age have been gleaned for their readings; although the versions of every nation, Arabic, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, and Ethiopian, have been again and again visited by industrious swarms to rifle them of their treasures; although having exhausted the stores of the West, critics have traveled like Scholz or Sebastian the recesses or Mount Enos, or the unexplored libraries of Egyptian and Syrian deserts, yet has nothing been considered certain or decisive in favor of any important doctrine...,CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS - THE BIBLE - PART II Page 5
these various readings, almost without exception leave un touched the essential parts of any sentence and mostly are only concerned with the insertion or omission of an article or conjunction, the more accurate grammatical construction, or the forms rather than the substance of the
Last of all there are the doctrinal alleged contradictions. These arise without exception from pure ignorance of spiritual things. As when they accused Paul of fighting with James-when James says, “Faith without works is dead,” and when Paul says, "Works without faith is dead," it never dawned upon them that both were right.
Again they argue that Rom. 2:11, "For there is no respect of persons with God." contradicts Rom. 9:l3, "As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." Ignorance of the spiritual meanings and the literal meanings of the words causes this so-called contradiction; God isn't a respecter of persons in that He doesn't kowtow to any man because of wealth or position, but treats all men with equal justice. To read the account of Jacob and Esau is to find why Jacob, in spite of his cunning and craftiness, is loved; and Esau, the one who held no value to his birthright as High Priest of the home, cared nothing for the things of God.
There is no use in multiplying these alleged contradictions as they all bear the same stamp, and some savor more of plain blasphemy than of honest doubt. For they go so far as to demand a clear explanation of every inscrutable mystery of the Word, and trot out the most sacred mysteries of the Godhead and laughingly find contradictions in things far too wonderful for them to ever grasp the smallest part. To thorn all may be ascribed the accusation of ignorance. In Boise, Idaho, on Fob. 7, l934, the students were asked to repeat the Lord's prayer and many led off with, "Now I lay me down to sleep." Whereupon a questionnaire was issued and showed that only 15% of the students in their high school knew the prayer. Like the lawyer who bet the other one that he didn't know the Lord's prayer. He bet 00 that ho did. So he started, "Now I lay me down to sleep." The other quickly said, "Here's your fi e; I didn't know you knew it."
In one high school they were answering a questionnaire, and one girl came to the one, "Write what you know about Elijah." Her answer was, "Not much is known of this holy man. Ho once went on a cruise with a widow." Likewise the man relating the story of the famine from Dan to Beersheba, He told of the terrible straits of the cities. One man said, "Cities" I thought Dan and Beersheba were man and wife like Sodom -and Gomorrah,”CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS - THE BIBLE - PART II Page 6
I personally have never met a skeptic or infidel who doubted the Bible, but that was ignorant of the Bible, and of the evidence on the opposite side. In conversation with one who began to trot out the so-called contradiction, I asked him sudden like, "Have you read much in the Bible?" He stuttered some then said, 'Why surely.' To this I replied, 'Yes and I can tell you how you have read it, you skipped here and there just reading a verse here or there." He admitted that was the course of Bible reading he indulged in. I told him then that he knew nothing of the evidence on the opposite side of the question and tried to bargain with him. I said, 'If you will go home and honestly read the Gospel of John clear through word for word, then I promise you that I shall argue with you; for then we shall have something common union which to argue. And if you read it honestly, there won't be an argument, but you will be converted," He wouldn't make any promise, and I told him he was scared to. Mr. Hume called himself the prince of skeptics. He said of his speculations, "They have so wrought upon and heated my brain that I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable than another." And yet while pretending to give a diligent study and search after truth and using his every fine talent to destroy the Gospel, he confessed, according to Dr. Johnson, that he had never read the New Testament with attention.
The truth is these doubters in their ignorance read into the Bible contradictions and immorality which isn"t there. A, T. Pierson in his hook, Many Infallible Proofs quotes a prominent evangelist’s statements about Bob Ingersoll: "The trouble with Ingersoll is this--he has selected the excrescences of human life, as it has grown in the churches, and has represented the excrescences as the essence of religion."
Suppose a physician, wishing to get up a museum representing the human body in all ages and conditions, should collect idiots and lunatics with wens and warts all over them. Suppose the physician should gather thorn into a museum and say, "There is humanity for you; what do you think of it?" That is what Bob Ingersoll is doing in the religious world. He says scores of true things that have been said before, but he doesn't know it. He is not widely read in Theology. I’m afraid that he doesn't read his Bible very much. What does he read it for? I'll tell you. The doves flying over the landscape see all that is sweet and peaceful; but when the buzzard and the vulturo fly abroad, the first thing they see is a loathesome carcass--and if it is anywhere in sight, they don't fail to see it. Ingersoll sees what he is looking after. He is a turkey buzzard. When I see a man with delight and a smile upon his face, light upon some argument which he can use toCHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS - THE BIBLE - PART II Page 7
tear down as he pleases, I know there is more than academic reasoning behind his efforts. He is like the African native chief whose defiance of the British Government and foul deeds reached the ears of the governor of his territory. He sent a messenger to deal with the chief. The chief killed the messenger and thought that ended the matter. He bated the message and thought to destroy the message by killing the messenger. So has man dealt with God’s message condemning man. He has killed His messengers and His Son, thus honing to kill the message. But the British Government sent a torpedo boat up the river -within sight of the chief's village and began cannonading the village; this time the chief meekly accepted the message.
The truth of the matter is that man’s trouble over the question of the Bible's inspiration and infallibility as God's message to man, isn't in his head but in his heart. No other Book in all the world, whether true or false, has raised more opposition or hatred. No other book calls forth such effort to destroy it. The reason the Scriptures assign to this is "MEN LOVE DARKNESS RATHER THAN LIGHT BECAUSE THEIR DEEDS ARE EVIL."
If you have ever turned over a board, you have- noticed the many little bugs and worms scurry for more shelter to get away from the light. Rum them from one cover, and they seek another. But confine a vine to the darkness, and it will send out feelers seeking the light. Uncover an atheist or skeptic in one argument, and watch him flee to another. He will refuse every appeal to his reason based upon evidences which he cannot refute nor answer; yet let two-by-four lecturer or barroom orator give some alleged contradiction or alleged scientific proof of error in the Scriptures, and he will carry it around on his lips, airing it as positive proof against the Bible.
Last of all, II Peter 3:3-5 tells us the sum of these scoffers' objections to the Bible ---- "Knowing this, that there shall come in the last days scoffers saying, 'Where is the promise of His coming?' Of this they are willingly ignorant." Christ said, "If any man willeth to know, he shall know (of Christ)." No honest man could examine the evidence for the Bible's inspiration and remain a doubter. But if he is dishonest, no argument will avail; he heads for another board to crawl under.
THE INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES
A. EXTERNAL EVIDENCES1. FULFILLED PROPHECY
There are two modes of approaching the subject of evidences for the inspiration of the Bible; namely, the external andCHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS - THE BIBLE - PART II Page 8
the internal, It is natural to start with the external. There are certain questions which must be accounted for if the Bible isn't God's revelation. If it is merely a human production, then the first great perplexing question we should demand the skeptic to answer is, "How do you explain fulfilled prophecy?" Not the vague, general, all-inclusive prophecies of the fortune teller, speaking of a trip some day, or a tall dark man coming into your life; but the accurate minute prophecies of the Bible spoken centuries and sometimes millenniums ahead of their fulfillment, If it can be established that the Bible prophesied events ahead of time, which literally minutely occurred to the letter. then man must confess the supernatural origin of the Bible. It is a conclusive evidence that the Bible is God's revelation. Man recognizes that it is beyond the power of man to foretell the future with any degree of accuracy. I believe this to be one of the primary reasons why God has set prophecy as one of the Divine seals of His revelation. (Jer. 28:9).
Prophecy shows the controlling hand of God in the affairs of man. It lays down the blueprint for the ages, showing God ruling and overruling toward a desired end. This should then be the logical starting point for considering Christian Evidences. There is no need of any special religious experience or enlightenment to understand. Only the logical processes of the human mind are needed. When the proof is uncovered and accumulates in detail, the unbeliever must confess, "This is the finger of God." How clear a seal this is that God has spoken. See Deut. 18:21-22; God says, you ask about a messenger, then see if his prophecy is fulfilled," Even Christ rested His proof to His deity upon this seal, John 14:29 "And now I have told you before it come to pass that when it is come to pass ye might believe."
Just one clear prophecy so presented and established so that it would not have been possible to guess, forever proves the Bible as God’s Word and takes it out of any possible human realm. You may well see the force of this evidence by the efforts of the critics, infidels, to disprove that such prophecies were ever made beforehand. It is one of the favorite tricks of the higher critics (self-styled) to try to dislodge the overwhelming evidence of Daniel's Gentile prophecies, by simply stating that he must have written after they happened to have written so minutely and name the very characters yet to come. They forget one little detail:
"SOME OF DANIEL ISN'T FULFILLED YET, AND SOME OF IT IS BEING FULFILLED TODAY."
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Now there are certain rules or laws of prophecy which would prove that they are not mere coincidences or guesses. This would constitute a canon for testing its fulfillment. A. T. Pierson numerated some:
1. There must be an clement of obscurity in it. Much that is hidden can only be understood fully when the prophecy takes place. Some have criticized the Bible prophecies as being obscure, Prophecy isn't merely to reveal to curiosity what is going to happen. But it is to reveal to faith after it has happened that God was in it and had a purpose in either causing it or allowing it to happen. It is a lock which only the fulfillment can clearly unlock. We see that in the divergency of opinion concerning future prophecy, the obscurity is necessary. If every detail were clearly announced, then wicked men would conspire to defeat it, or even friends of it might so bend circumstances to make a seeming fulfillment. When a true prophecy is fulfilled, there must be no doubt that it is wholly God, and not man designing it. If this were not so, think of the frauds which false religious systems would have (and have) pawned off on the public.
2. It must be such an unveiling of the future that no mere human foresight or wisdom or sagacity could have guessed it. Some folks have a keen foresight. Then again there are students of government who can see the signs of the times, trends, of the day and forecast events. Weather prophets see tomorrow’s weather by pressure areas and past experience.
3. The prediction must deal in details sufficiently to exclude shrewd guesswork. Many guesses may be made with a fair probability of some of them happening. But every detail added lessens the chance of its being fulfilled. I can say that so-and-so is going to die, All I need is time for that to happen, but naming the date lessens the chance--so with place, cause, and circumstances.
4. There must be such a lapse of time between prophecy and fulfillment as to preclude the agency of the prophet himself in effecting or affecting the result. Otherwise the author might by secret or subtle means bring about an apparent accomplishment. You can see then how the stream of fulfilled prophecy has swollen with each successive fulfillment, and still the last, freshest, hasn't occurred.CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS THE BIBLE - PART II Page 10
The Christian religion and the Bible are the only systems of religions or revelation which have rested their claim of Divine origin upon miracles and fulfilled prophecy. The very boldness and audacity of using such evidence is a proof of its genuineness. All criticism recognizes that our Old Testament was as we have it in the hands of the Jews 200 years before Christ, Yet, it rests its claim to Divine origin calmly upon the fulfillment of its prophecies, despite all the devil can do to keep them from being fulfilled--and all the changing fortunes of man can do to thwart their accomplishment. It defies every science to prove that even one prophecy is untrue.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF FULFILLED PROPHECY:
1. THE PROPHECY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF TYRE (Ez, 26:3-5, 12, 14).
This was prophesied just before the Babylonian captivity almost six-hundred years before Christ, as can be seen from the various prophecies of the Book. Yet the things he prophesied were not fulfilled for three-hundred years. He spoke during the heyday of Tyre's glory--a rich, prosperous, mercantile, sea-faring nation, whose ships visited every port and brought their riches into Tyre at the time this prophecy was made. It was an old city; it was there when Joshua conquered the land. It was a most unusual prophecy, minute and humanly--the most unlikely of being fulfilled,
Just a short time after the prophecy, Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to the city, hold it for 13 years, and finally captured it. He laid it in ruins, but the prophecy wasn't fulfilled. The maritime city removed to an island a half mile off the shore from the ruined city and flourished again. Two-hundred forty years later Alexander the Great in his world-wide conquest drew up his armies on the bank of the Mediterranean overlooking the island city and demanded it to surrender, Feeling secure, they refused. Alexander the Great began building a causeway over the one-half mile stretch of water. He used everything he could; and finally, in order to finish it, he had to use all of the ruins of the ancient city to finish it. He even scraped the rocks bare to lay it in the water and conquered the city of Tyre, I personally saw a picture of fishermen spreading their nets over the bald rocks marking the sight of ancient Tyre.CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS THE BIBLE - PART II Page 11
2. THE PROPHECY OF BABYLON (Isa. 13:19-22).
Much of this is fulfilled in ancient Babylon, but a greater fulfillment awaits In the Babylon of the Anti Christ. The site of the ancient city of Babylon belonging to Nebuchadnezzar is In ruins today and the haunt of bats and wild beasts. Prof. Ralson in his book Egypt and Babylon (p. 206) says, "On the actual site of Babylon the Arabian will neither pitch his tent nor pasture his flock. They have a superstition attached to the place; they think it to be the haunt of evil spirits."
3. THE PROPHECIES CONCERNING ISRAEL.
There are too many to record but a few. Deut. 28:25, 37, 64-68--does anyone need proof of the fulfillment of this prophecy? Num. 23:9--"This people shall dwell alone and shall not be reckoned with the nations." America has been called the smelting pot where all nationalities were recast and came out Americans. Yes, all nations but Israel. They never lose their national identity. Why? God said they wouldn't. A Swede comes to America, is naturalized, and is an American. But a Jew, though an American citizen--and usually a good one, is an American Jew. In Germany he is a German Jew, etc.
a. They would have no sacrifices, Hos. 3:4 yet keep their religion, Ez. 6:9.
b. No king, Hos. 3:4 -- or the long night of the Gentiles.
c, A reproach, Ez. 5:14,15.
4. THE PROPHECY CONCERNING EGYPT (Ez. 29: 15).
Yet when this was written they had the strong monarchy under one dynasty of Pharaohs one of the oldest, or the oldest, empires of antiquity. Successive foreign lordship; Nebuchadnezzar, Cambysis--Persia; Alexander--Greece; Octavia--Rome; Amroo--Arabia; Saladin--Saracon; Ibeg--Mameluke; Selim--Ottoman; Bonaparte--Corsican; Mohamct--Turk, and now British Mandate.
CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS THE BIBLE - PART II5. THE PROPHECIES CONCERNING THE LAND OF IDUMEA.
The land of the descendants of Esau. His name was changed to Edom because of his hairy redness, so his country called Idumea, and his descendants Edomites. This land extended southward and eastward from the land of Palestine into the rocky mountainous country stretching away from the Dead Sea southward. The mountain range is called Seir,
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The reason for God's pronounced judgment is in Ez. 35:3-7 and all of the little book of Obadiah. When the prophecies wore uttered against Seir, they were unlikely of fulfillment from the natural standpoint. The number of ruins show the land to have many populous cities. Petra, the capital--meaning 'rock' was a place of immense strength and one of the wonders of the world. In studying pictures of the ruins of Petra, you may see it was carved out of the solid rock canyon. It was one of the crossroads of the ancient caravans, made rich by trade.
In the time of Christ, Idumea i1as still rich and prosperous, the prophecy unfulfilled. Herod the Great, who ruled over Palestine in the time of Christ's birth, was an Idumean. In the fourth and to the sixth centuries A.D. It was still a prosperous land, and Mohammed marched against it in 630 A.D. Then the curtain falls on Idumea until modern times when it is only the curiosity of archaeologists.
Now note the prophecies: Obadiah; Ez. 35:3-7; Jer. 49:16, 17.
a. Its commerce was to cease, Ex. 35:7.
b. The race of Edomites should become extinct, Obadiah 18. The very name has become extinct.
c. The land is a desolation, Ez. 35:3, 4, 15. Volney was the first to call attention to the utter ruins and desolations of ancient Edom. In three days' journey thirty ruined towns are met. Petra-the rock-hewn city--fit even today to house a multitude, is only the habitations of bats and owls. Only a Bedouin is found wandering among the ruins. The only town still standing is the modern town of Maan, which is the Teman of the Bible. It is populated for the springs within it, creating an oasis. That in itself is prophecy, Ez. 35:l3--"I will make it desolate from Teman," Still there remains some to be fulfilled, Isa. 34:5-10. There are still a few wandering Arabs passing through, but that also shall come to pass. would like to see this country, stand on the great funeral train of crumbling pillars, by the monuments of the long-dead nation that forgot God, and declare that the Bible is God's Book. There are some prophecies of the cities of the Philistines which could be considered--Ascalon, Gaza, Ekron, etc. but we shall leave them.
6. THE PROPHECIES OF JERUSALEM.
a. The temple of Christ’s day, Matt. 24:2 "not one stone upon another" -- Interesting prophecy. When Titus destroyed the city of Jerusalem, 70 A.D., they fired
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the temple, and the gold melted down into the crevices between the rocks; In order to recover It they had to remove each rock so that 'not one stone was left upon another."
b. Of the city of Jerusalem, Luke 21:24. 'Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled." To the Jew this is exemplified most clearly by the hateful despicable presence of the Mosque of the Mohammedans, the Mosque of Omar. The latest uprisings of the Arabs against the Jew is the further trodding upon Jerusalem. The city of Jerusalem has been taken and sacked some twenty-six times in its bloody history, and is still set for one more as recorded in Zech. 14.
The prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem by Christ, Matt. 24, and that of Zech. iLk, have only a partial fulfillment in 70 AD, when it was sacked and destroyed by Titus. It still awaits the greatest under the Anti-Christ.
In passing, it Is interesting to note the prophecies of Christ against three other cities of Palestine, Matt. 11:20, 21, 23: Capernaum, Chorazin, and Bethsaida. Today only ruins mark the site of Capernaum and Chorazin, while Bethsaida has never been actually found. This is to say nothing of the prophecies of the Church, which the believer alone recognizes.
7. THE PROPHECY OF GENTILE WORLD DOMINION -- of the entire world's history.
We won't include the marvelous book of Revelation, with its history of the Church for two thousand years, hut we shall consider Daniel.
The prophecies of Daniel have been fulfilled so minutely that it is no wonder that it is the first battlefield of the so-called higher critics. To concede to Daniel that the book was written when it said it was, would have to admit the truth of prophecy and the Divine Inspiration of the Bible. This their foolish darkened hearts were not willing to do; so they invented their "wonderful" system of criticism to prove that Daniel is not prophecy, but history, written not before, but after, It happened. Bunsen said, "A pious man resolved to avail himself of the traditions regarding Daniel and apply them to the circumstances of his own time, and in the name of that prophet, proclaim words of admonition to encourage the
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faithful." He Is a little contradictory. The position is clear: either Daniel was written when it says it was, by the prophet Daniel, or someone was a mighty big liar. I think it was the critics. Their position has been abundantly overthrown by Dr. Anderson in his wonderful little book, Daniel in the Critic's Den.
There are so many proofs of the dishonesty, not of Daniel--but the critics in handling Daniel-- that we cannot give them here. Archaeology has come to the rescue of Daniel in the critic's den, by showing that the writer of Daniel must have been on the scene during Babylon's heyday. Even the three divisions of magic unearthed by the spade correspond to the three enumerated in Daniel.
a. The world empires are given in a dream (Ch. 2) and a vision (Ch. 7), and there is no guess-work as to the meaning; the interpretation is likewise given. In the added detailed vision of chapter eight the names and character of the last four beasts or kingdoms are given.
Four great world-wide empires are given--no more, never to be another until Christ sets up His own. The fourth empire is to endure in some of its forms until the stone fills the earth. If left to human reasoning and foresight, especially knowing the ambitions of human potentates, man would have forecasted innumerable empires. But for 2700 years of the times of the Gentiles already past, still there are no more world empires. The prophecy of Daniel is good right down until today, is up-to-date right to this moment, and stretches out into the future. (In class we shall give a short sketch of Daniel’s marvelous prophecy).
8. THE PROPHECIES FULFILLED CHRIST.
Those prophecies of Christ In the Old Testament, it must be remembered, were complete and settled firmly in the Jewish Bible of the Septuagint version--the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament wo hundred years before the birth of Christ. Ptolemy Philadelphia, king of Egypt, commanded seventy learned Jews to make the translation. When one then collects and tabulates the multitude of prophecies concerning Christ from the Old Testament and reads the four Gospels and sees the exact minute fulfillment in Him, there is a thrill of faith In the soul that this is indeed the very Word of God. Only God could paint the portrait of a coming person upon the earth over a period of 1500 years by many painters, and yet have every added dab
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of paint fit into the portrait without so much as a smear or blotch. The picture adds up to a clear, beautiful complete picture. It is the portrait of one single individual person. The singular masculine pronouns are continuously used of Him. For illustration, Isa. 53:-- He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, etc. So it is all through. All of the hopes of deliverance for Israel and salvation for men revolve themselves into one Man, the Messiah of the Old Testament revelation.
We cannot hope in this course to give all of the many prophecies fulfilled in Christ, but shall give enough to show their force. I personally have tabulated 166 distinct prophecies of Christ in the book of Isaiah alone:
Born of a virgin, Gen. 3:15; Isa. 7:14 Of Lineage of David, I Sam, 7:12; Isa. 11:1-10. In Bethlehem, Mic. 5:2. Go to Egypt, Hos, 11:1. Be a miracle-worker, Isa. 35:5,6; 42:1-7. Would triumphantly enter Jerusalem, Zech, 9:9. Would be rejected of Israel, Isa, 53:1-3 Ps. 118:22. And then for how long, Isa. 6:1-12; Rom. 11:25. Be betrayed by one of His own, and f or how much, Zech. 11:12,13; Ps. 41:9. Mode of His death, crucifixion, Ps.22:16. Be given gall and vinegar to drink, Ps. 59:21. Enemies would part His garments, Ps. 22:18. The multitude of thoughts concerning His death, Isa. 58; Resurrection, Ps. 16:10.
Many more could be given—-His poverty was spoken of, His work, as in Isa. 61:1,2; the violence of His death, "cut off," in Dan. 9; and the very year of His death also in Dan. 9. The burning light of 4000 years of faith and divine revelation focused down into the person of Christ, with a burning, flaming pin-point. These prophecies not only prove that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, but that the Bible is the Word of the Living God.
II. THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF THE BIBLE
The Bible is a present fact in the world. Here it is! It has been in existence for two millenniums in its present form, and parts of it for 3500 years. In spite of the efforts of those to destroy it, it is a greater force in the world today than ever. It has survived the vicissitudes of chance and all the catastrophic of history which have destroyed many other books and whole libraries. But it has also borne the brunt of deliberate, calculated plans for its annihilation by powerful forces. There have been despotic emperors with absolute power who have decreed its eradication.
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Satanic hatred has inspired men to try every device conceivable to discredit and destroy the Scriptures. Every method that learning could imagine, and hatred suggest, has been tried, Yet here is this dear old Book unscathed, the most precious Book in the world to millions and millions--more precious than any of the millions of books. There are libraries with five millions of books. There are probably fifteen or twenty million books in the world, but which of them all will anyone be willing to die for. rather than to desecrate or give up?
In spite of the campaign of three thousand years to destroy the Bible. it still stands today--the world’s best seller, the only Book in the world a soldier or sailor wants in a life-boat with him or in a fox-hole, - - the only Book he wants to have with him when he dies, So from Diocletian, the Roman emperor, until the higher critics of today men have sought to upset the Bible, only to find it like a cube you upset it, and it is just as broad as it is high; it sets just as large one way as another.
It has been likened to the old smithy's anvil, When one i. i:ina him how many anvils he had had through the years, his answer was "Just one," But when asked how many hammers, he said, "Many, for the anvil wears out the How many puny hammers of men have burst upon the anvil of the Word, and it still. a bands."
Is there any other book in all the world which has called forth such attacks as this Bible? why the hatred? And how does it come about that every attack has failed? In 303 A.D., Diocletian started an attack upon the Bible to annihilate it. By relentless effort and empirical decree he hounded every copy. At last he took the one he thought was the last, and burnt it in a public place, and raised a tombstone on the bier, writing upon it, "The name of Christian is extinguished." Tom Payne, the infidel said. "Fifty years from now the Bible will be obsolete and forgotten." You can answer that statement your self; and it is interesting to note that the very printing press upon which was printed Tom Payne's Age of Reason was later used to turn out thousands of Bibles.
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Voltaire, the silly French infidel, remarked, "It took twelve men to start Christianity, but one will destroy it" — meaning himself. He also said, "In one hundred years there will not be a copy of the Bible on the earth, except as a curio" in a He just missed the guess by half a billion, and missed the guess of location of the Bible by almost every civilized home in the world. The very room in which Voltaire wrote his articles against the Bible and the very shelves which looked down on his sneering face, became a storage room for the Bibles of the Foreign Bible Society. There is a Bible or a Testament or a portion of the Bible for every man, woman, and child in the world. The printing press used by Voltaire is used now by the Geneva Bible Society for printing Bibles. Billy Bray, the Cornish miner, visiting the museum in London, came across the roped-off space where the chair of Voltaire stood, in which Voltaire wrote his satires against the Bible--Billy jumped the rope before anyone could prevent him and, sitting in the infidel’s chair, in round Cornish brogue sang lustily, "Jesus shall reign where’re the sun doth his successive journeys run; His kingdom spread from shore to shore, till moons shall wax and wain no more." How true his response to the caviling of Voltaire.
Bob Ingersoll, the blasphemous infidel, ran up and down the country saying, "I’m going to put the Bible out of business." But God raised another Bob: Robert Garry, who was Bob Ingersoll's secretary, student, and admirer. He was to carry on Bob's work, but shortly after the death of Bob Ingersoll, Garry was converted, and wrote scores of Bible lessons and refuted much of Ingersoll's work, using the very desk of Ingersoll to write his defense of the Bible.
Can book be merely a human book--and why hasn't other human books likewise stood the same tests—-which has seem the bitter hatred of its foes and the false dealings of its proposed friends? The indestructibility of the Bible is one of the grand proofs of its supernatural origin and super-natural preservation. I say that its preservation is just as miraculous as its origin. There are over 500,000,000 Bibles in the world today. The British and the American Bible Societies before the war printed Bibles at the rate of one every five seconds, twelve per minute, 720 an hour, 17,280 every clay. These two societies alone in one hundred years have printed 250,000,000 Bibles up to Theodore Roosevelt's administration. If you could have the 500,000,000 Bibles together and put them end to end, they would go around the earth almost three times. The Bible is translated into over one thousand languages and dialects in every part of the globe. Why is the Bible such a universal Book that seven-tenths of the children of man can read it in the mother tongue? Why is it impossible to destroy the Bible? Here certainly is proof of the inspiration of the Bible.
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Illustration: We read during the second world war of the saving of thousands of lives of birds in the harbor of New York City, by the dimout regulations. These regulations required the Statue of Liberty to be blacked out. The statue stands 325 feet high. Twelve men can stand in the hand whore the light burns continually. Hundreds of birds, attracted by the light, beat out their lives upon the great light. But the light shines on and guides the weary traveler home to the harbor. Voltaire, Hume, Huxley, and Ingersoll have boat out their lives against the eternal Word of God. The friction of opposition only polishes the dear old Book so that it shines the brighter and makes more folks stop and read it.
How mad must man be to try to destroy the Word of God? Can the Bible be destroyed? Lot us see for a moment. God has been careful to weave the Bible into the very
fiber and fabric of human literature, history, and society.Have you ever thought of what a task it would be to erase the Bible from the earth? First of all, he would have to buy up the 500,000,000 copies at an average of one dollar apiece. He would have to hunt them in every island, every continent, every language, every village and hamlet, in every land and climate. He would then build a huge bonfire, In the first place, we have no infidel or society of infidels who have that much money; second place, he couldn’t find them all; and in the third place, he couldn't buy them all, for some dear old Dutch saint wouldn't sell her Bible for the whole U.S.A.
He would have to rifle every library, public and private, in the whole world for the multitude of quotations from the Bible in the millions of books of the earth. For two thousand years men have
written about the Bible and quoted it. Every verse is quoted again and again. So he would have to buy the libraries of the world.He would then have to destroy the art galleries of the world and smear the masterpieces of all ages which picture Bible characters and Bible scenes,
Has he finally succeeded then? No, he would have to go to the musicians of the world, destroy the hymnals, the Messiah with its Hallelujah Chorus, and destroy the grand symphonies of the Church. All religious music must perish, for the Bible is woven into the fabric of music as well as literature and art.
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Has he destroyed the Bible yet? No, for he must visit the cities of the dead. The ancient tombs with their engravings and inscriptions from the Bible must be erased; pull down the modern tombstones with their Bible quotations.
Then he must destroy the Bible from the hearts of the millions of saints which love it and pillow their souls upon its ever green bosom.
Would that even destroy the Bible? No, finally he must fly through space, past creation's rim, past flaming cherubim which keep the throne of God, into the rainbow-crowned throne of Almighty God, and overthrow Him and wreck His throne, For we read in the Bible, "Thy Word, 0 God, is forever settled in Heaven."
Stand some blustery, stormy day on a rockbound coast and watch the mighty waves come dashing in high and mightily, like powerful juggernauts, seeming bent on destroying all before thorn, only to break futilely and fall back foaming into their dark depths. So has the rock of the Word broken every attack, standing solidly through the ages, giving its impartial testimony.
III. THE INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE
Here we consider another proof of the inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures, namely, the wonderful influence of the Scriptures. Man writes a book, and if he has given any depth of thought, and wisely chosen a topic of both interest and moment, if he writes for and to his generation, then he is read after by the intelligence; and ho exerts some influence to the moldings of the thought of his time. But the influence is confined both to his own strata of society and learning, and only to his own day and race. Very few men over write with such clarity and import as to reach over racial barriers and reach other nations than his own; and only a few have exerted such influences as to change the course of history by their writings, of generations to come. But here in the Bible we have a book which speaks with authority and transforms society and individuals of every nation into which it is translated. Its influence is not limited to any nationality. It is a universal book. Its influence is not confined to any age, but each succeeding ago feels the weight of its undying influence. It is a timeless book, as much up to date as ever. It speaks to men of today a s graphically as when uttered by the mouths of prophet or apostle. Its ethics and morals are more up to date than today’s newspaper, though written over 2000 years ago. How is such marvelous influence to mould men’s lives through the millenniums to be accounted for? Has any other book ever wielded such influence? What book in all the world is like unto this Book?
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What other book can you carry into the heart of an uncivilized cannibalistic people who are bloodthirsty, head-hunters, dirty, immoral, degraded, and preach it and see it transform those same people into moral, peace-loving, singing people? What book but the Bible will make a head-hunting Dyack, the famed wild man from Borneo, burn up his sacred dried human heads, and carry a psalm and a prayer and a sermon to his enemy instead of seeking his head to han4 on his tent? You can't carry another book in all the world to a savage and see it make any difference in his life, What constitutes the wonderful influence of this particular Book? You try to explain that on any other grounds than the fact that this Book was given by the "inspiration of God, and is profitable," and that "Holy men of God as they wore moved of the Holy Spirit." Because this Book is the Lord of God, His message of His will to man, there fore it carries with it its high moral tone, its elevating influence to lift men from sin and heathenism, into the holiness of communion and fellowship with God. As the Scriptures testify of themselves, "the Word is quick (living) and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword." What all the Dutch Government couldn't do to tame the wild Dyack of Borneo and the Dutch East Indies by the sword and the gun and the jail, the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the Word of God has accomplished.
How are men to account for the influence of this book? book which changed the course of history, changed governments, and brought enlightenment to untold millions, is the greatest factor for righteousness, in all the world, yet was written in the most part by ignorant men, as far as earthly wisdom is concerned. Wherever it has gone, with it has gone light, life, and morality, and love, and the elevation of womanhood.
If anyone ought to appreciate the Bible, it is womanhood. When a woman criticizes and ridicules the Bible, she is trying to push herself back into slavery and degradation far worse than she can conceive. Let her look to the lands whore the Bible hasn't had free sway. Let her put herself under the Koran, which denies to a woman a soul or any religious experience. She is but a slave to her husband, to be worked, beaten, brutalized, and cast off for another. As Mohammed said when introducing his wife, "A little lower than my horse and little bettor than my dog, my wife." That is what the founder of Mohammedanism thought of womanhood. Or let her put herself under the religious system of India, whore she is also denied a soul. There she was made to walk alive onto the funeral pier of a dead husband to be burned alive in the horrible Suttee, so that she could continue to slave for her lord and master, her husband, in
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his heaven. Only the British strict law enforcement put a stop to that practice. And England had some just as bad until the Bible carried the Gospel to her and taught her the worth of womanhood.
You can't get away from the influence of the Bible. Wherever it has been deprived, there you will find misery, ignorance, superstition, darkness, fear, cruelty, hatred, and death; but wherever it is taught and read and reverenced, it brings light, learning, liberty, love, and high morality.
When Columbus stood on the shores of South America and sighted the mighty Oronoco River, there was quite a dispute as to what kind of land upon which they had landed. The sailors kept asserting that it was an island, but with wonderful wisdom Columbus pointed to the mighty Oronoco River and said, "No, it can’t be an island; for you, mighty stream, drains the heart of a continent."
When I see the mighty stream of influence running down through the ages from the Bible, I can't believe that it came from the island of the heart of man. The stream is too large; no, it drains the heart of a continent; it came from the heart of God. That is the only possible explanation for the influence of the Bible.
Note the influence of the Bible upon nations. There is the mighty British Empire. Someone asked Queen Victoria the secret for the greatness of the British Empire. She lifted the Bible from bar table, opened it on her out-stretched hand, and said, "Here it is." One of the most practical minds of our day and one of the greatest statesmen of the world is the late Premier Winston Churchill of England When he was selected in the last war to serve as First Lord of the Admiralty, he related in his book, "The world Crisis of 1914-l9l8," that the awful sense of responsibility almost weighted him down. He felt the uncertainty, the apprehension, about assuming such a colossal task in the face of the known strength of Germany, and her great preparations for World War Number One. He says, "That night when I went to bed, I saw a large Bible lying on the table in my bedrooms My mind was dominated by the news I had received of the complete change in my station, and of the task entrusted to me. I thought of the peril of Britain. . .I thought of the mighty Germany" (and he here tells of what he himself had seen of the might of Germany, in preparation for wane conquest). With these thoughts running through his mind he took up the Bible, and without plan he opened it to a passage which gave him courage and strengthened him for his new duties; Deut. 9:1-5, where God speaks of being with Israel and going before them to drive out the ruthless, godless nations. How God’s Word guided
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Churchill, whether he was saved or not, is well recorded in his biography. He saved the British from catastrophe in the last war, and I believe has saved her in this war. (world war II)
As for America, It is hardly necessary to Illustrate the influence of the: Bible upon the course of our nation. The foundations of America were laid upon the open leaves of the Bible. The Plymouth fathers, before they landed on Plymouth Rock from the Mayflower, knelt and prayed and opened the Bible and drew the first charter for the colony. The foundations stones of America were not laid by infidels or those who doubted the Bible. Turn in the biographies of each of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the framers of the Constitution, and you will see respect for the Word of God. Each avowed their debt to the Bible. Our first president prayed at Valley Forge. When Roger Babson, the Statistician, asked the president of Argentine., "What is the difference between South American and North America--why the difference?" With rare judgment he answered, "When the explorers came to South America, they came searching for gold; but when they came to North America, they came seeking God." Wendell Phillips said, "The answer to the Shasta is India; the answer to Confucianism is China; the answer to the Koran is Turkey; the answer to the Bible is Christian America." Note the influence of the Bible upon the individual. Once Daniel Webster the great American statesman, was asked which he preferred if he had only the one choice: whether a four-year college education, or a thorough education in the Bible. His answer was, "I would rather have a thorough education in the Bible, for I would be better educated."
His personal testimony to the influence of the Bible would help if read in the halls of Congress and in the White House today. "I believe the Bible is to be understood and received in the plain and obvious moaning of its passages; for I can not persuade myself that a book intended for the instruction and conversion of the whole world should cover its true meaning in such mystery and doubt that none but critics end philosophers could discover. If we abide by the principles as taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and
to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instruction and authority, no man can tell how suddenly a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury our glory in profound obscurity. Good advise for the day in which we live - and the eclipscg America's Sun.
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There are millions of men and women around the world today who can testify to the Divine, influence of the Bible in transforming their lives. No one can read the Bible and obey its commandments and imbibe its moral influence, with out being changed. I have seen drunken bums, illiterate, and degenerate, give their hearts to Christ and start reading the Bible as God’s will for their lives, and have seen
the transformation that took place. Their outward appearance changed, and life took on new hope and meaning. Their clothes became clean as well as their bodies; their language changed instead of cursing, they sang and praised God. Their minds cleared up both from liquor and vileness. Is there another book in all the world with that influence? So mark the fruits of the Bible. Does it bear evil fruit? Does it merely bear human fruit? The only form of human government which makes the individual something instead of a slave and gives him liberty, is founded upon the Bible. Every moral government on earth which is worth living under and dying for; is built on the Bible. The Bible has elevated humanity from heathenism, brought to man the realization of the sacredness of human life and the sanctity of the home. It has freed womanhood and placed her on equality with man as possessing equal opportunity in the Gospel and equal responsibility before God for her actions.
The Bible is the fountain-head of all purity, righteousness, and freedom In the world. Its influence declares its source. Remove the Bible from its place of authority , and what is left? Enslaved heathenism, and lawless juvenile delinquency. Our problem in America as to how to deal with the child-crime situation is caused by the breakdown of belief in the inspiration and authority of the Bible,
Here is a remarkable illustration of the influence of the Bible. Many who do not respect the Book itself nor believe in its Divine origin, still respect those who respect the Book.
Two men were traveling through a little populated district with quite a large sum of money on their persons. They became lost in a blizzard, and while blindly stumbling along, they saw the light of a fire coming through a lonely cabin window. They made for it as a last hope. When they knocked, a boarded giant of a fellow came to the door. It was too late to with draw oven had they wished. They might perish in the storm if they withdrew, but they wore afraid of the man of the house. He invited them in and gave them food at their request and also allowed them to spend the night. When time for retiring came, the host led them to a lean-to at the back of the shack and left thorn. They sought for a moans to bar the door, but to their chagrin, found none. They whispered back and forth between
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themselves as to what they ought to do. They thought of trying to sneak out through the back and leave before they wore robbed or harm came to their persons, but there was no window or door out of the lean-to to the outside. There was no place to hide the money. They kept their clothes on, and one kept a big piece of stove wood near at hand to defend himself. So in fear of their money an:’ their lives, they laid
down to spend an uneasy night. They made it up for one to stay awakes and guard for a few hours; then the other would do likewise. After a while, the one on guard awakened the other and said, "we, are fools--there Isn’t a thing to be afraid of; I want you to see something." He took him over to a knothole in the wall looking into the main room where the light still shone from the fire, When the other man looked through, he saw the old hermit, sitting humped over an old leather-bound Bible ho had on his knees. He was tracing the words out one by one with his finger and thee reading them out loud to himself. The one who was awakened from sleep sighed and. said, "Well, we can go to sleep and feel no need of keeping guard now; we know he won’t hurt us."
What if they saw him reading Torn Payne's "Age of Reason" or "Gone With the Wind" or any other book in the whole world? Would it have set their minds at ease? What made the difference? They realized the influence this dear old Book exerts upon those who read it.
The influence of the Bible is no small proof of its Divine origin. Certainly such a mighty river must drain the heart of a continent. It must come from the heart of God.
B. INTERNAL EVIDENCES
I. THE MORAL SUBLIMITY OF THE BIBLE
Everything that man has ever made or can make is imperfect. If examined closely enough, you will find imperfection and deformities, Every watch must be corrected by the chronometer, and the chronometer must be regulated by the stars. Anything made by man is capable of improvement. But God's Law reveals no defects. The morals of the Scriptures cannot be improved.
Mon boast of their learning. They say, "This is a progressive age." Men are not content to leave any former work as it is, but seek a better way of doing it -- a better motor, a better system. Human learning has advanced remarkably. Why, then, haven’t men written a better Bible than this one? What literary fame would come to the one who could do it!
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Surely they could write a bettor book than those nomadic men, who, without libraries or universities wrote in the very dawn of history, or those untutored fishermen who followed Christ, But man has never been able to conceive such moral beauty as resides in the Bible. And I present that fact as a proof of the inspiration of the Bible. Every human production is capable of improvement. Is there much comparison between the fast lightning fighter of today, end the first flying machine of Wright? Place a modern fast streamlined diesel alongside of the old wood-burning locomotive; or place the modern mogul engine alongside the old rocket engine, and see the comparison. I well remember the first radios, the crude crystal sets, and tinkering with a wire over a. piece of quartz, picking up stations as far away as 25 miles. Now they have two-way telephone-radio connections around the world and with the moon and satellite to the plants 100's of million of miles away.So everything man-made is capable of improvement, but the first Book still stands at the head, unimproved upon. For man to tamper with and try to improve it, would only destroy its beauty, symmetry, and perfection. Wherever man has tried to write a code of ethics apart from the Scriptures, he has always run counter the moral law of his soul; and wherever man has written a book on ethics in any civilized country, he has consciously or unconsciously borrowed the only thoughts worth living by from the Bible.
Should the Bible contain the greatest of scientific truth, the greatest of mysteries, and the greatest of revelations, but one vital error in morals, it could not be the guide for our souls. So in a revelation claiming to be from God, I would expect perfection of morals, a moral sublimity transcending any human production and. all human productions.
If a man were ignorant that any revelation was ever given, knew nothing about the Bible, and were to seek to find out if God had. over communicated in writing unto man, what would ho look for in the Book from God?
(1) It would be intelligible, a clear revelation, capable of being understood by the average man.
(2) It would be consistent, that Is its testimony would be essentially one united, harmonious witness - not reversing itself every chapter, or so, contradicting, and changing completely ever so often.
(3) It would be transcendent, far surpassing all human teachings in the tone of its precepts, and bearing the
impress of the Divine mind and heart in its whole structure,
(4) It would be practical, touching the actual needs of men.
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Wow we shall consider each of these propositions in the study of Christian Apologetics, but this immediate study is concerned with the thought of the surpassing moral sublimity of the Scriptures over every human literary production. Like the Christ Who stands upon a high and lofty pedestal, removed by infinite distance from the world of other men--not like other men, but other than other men--in His teachings, life, and origin, so the Bible is other than other books, removed by impassable distance from human literary works. Whatever of good you may find in man’s works, you will find in the Bible -- and here freed from all human defects, contaminations, and biases. Man still bears marks of his exalted origin as made in the image of God, and from the moral law written in his heart he can lay clown some code of ethics; but always without exception ho is either lax or extreme and fails in some points. There is the need. of an impartial external standard of morals, which will correct all wrong, thinking and standards. It is this the Bible claims to be.
In the law of correlation, which we have already considered in a former treatise, for every instinct there is an answering reality; and for every specially adapted organ there is a corresponding element for which it is adapted. For illustration, the fin demands water; the wing of a bird demands air in which to fly, the eye demands light waves; the ear, sound waves, etc. So from this argument, we infer that the Bible was meant as a light to the moral nature within the soul of man. The scientist boldly infers that light was meant for the eye, and eye for the light, because a light is pleasant to the healthy eye and painful only to the diseased eye. So reasoning inductively, the Bible was meant for the moral soul of men; for the pure in mind, the most moral of men, the Bible is a delight.
There is an answering response of the soul to the stimulus of the Bible, But when the soul becomes diseased by sin and voice, there is an antagonism to the Scriptures. To the man who would live up to the highest degree of ethics, who would live a pure life, there is a natural turning to the Bible precepts for a standard of excellency.
Some say that the truth is to be received simply because it is commanded, whether it coincides with the dictates of our moral natures as to what is right and. wrong, because there is right and wrong. As a child recognizes its father by certain likenesses, expressions, attitudes, gait, voice, so we recognize God because He corresponds to our Inner sense of whet God must be, the description of Himself Ho has written upon our souls. Ho fits into the void of our spiritual natures as nothing else can.
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I can think of no miracle which would force man to believe contrary to conscience-—to believe of God that He is cruel, unjust, weak, and capricious. So if the Bible is the Word of God, it contains nothing which would essentially oppose my moral sense. I should expect to find no outraging of the corresponding inner revelation of God in my soul, no positive teaching which is contrary to my sense of right and wrong. Wow while I confess that the revelation in man is somewhat obscured by sin and the fall, still there are traces
there of a past glory which corresponds to the Scriptural picture of whet man ought to be, In the ruins of a city, you see but a small picture of its past glory; yet there is little difficulty of recognizing what city it was. And there are evidences everywhere of the past glory. But God made man in His own Image. It is plain that the image is shattered and man is in ruin, Yet when we compare the Scriptural picture of what man ought to be with the ruins, we see correspondence. You can collect all that is right and true and moral among the utterances of human souls in heathenism or civilization, and there is a similitude with the revelations of the Word. When the mind receives the truth of the Bible without antagonism, he must admit the truth of its utterances about himself. It draws the picture of man's true state as he is, and then draws such a beautiful picture of what God meant him to be, until the soul of man is required to say, "Amen," There is not another book in all the world, either claiming to be a revelation or work of man, which sets the standard of personal purity so high or demands uprightness of life,
There are a number of elements which cause us to comment upon the moral sublimity of the Sacred Scriptures.
1. One element of the ethical perfection of the Bible is its impartiality. Can man over write a biography which is unbiased? They partake of hero worship and most of the time are inspired by such admiration which sees no flaw, but only perfection, Only the good points are stressed, only the great things, the victories. How would relatives like the biography--or folks buy it--if it told all the petty details, the pock-marks which mar every great man? How untrue to life are biographies. As Cromwell said to Lela, who asked him how he wanted his portrait painted, "Paint me - warts and all; paint me as I am, If you leave out a scar, a wrinkle, a freckle, or a pimple, I'll not Jay you one shilling." How many great men want that kind of portrait whether in paint or ink? But what about the Bible portraits? What if man were writing the biographies of those mighty men of the Bible? Would they have been as honest? Men like
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Noah, David, and Moses. There is no effort to cloak them with perfection; the truth is told without detracting from their greatness, but always glorifies God. How the Gospel writers frankly told their own sins and faults. Peter's failures and denial is not hidden, but honestly told. The gallery of Battles of Versailles tells in glowing pictures the victories of France from the crusade down. If stretched out, it would cover seven miles. But while it enumerates the victories, it never gives any of its defeats,
If the disciples of Christ were merely trying to foster off upon the world a system of religion of their own devising, would. they when writing their biographies in the Gospels have put themselves in such a bad light as they did? Is it customary to belittle yourself? To tell of your faults, especially in writing? Sometimes in the heat of confession there is the revealing of some things derogatory to ourselves, but in cold writing and proof- reading they don’t look so good. But if like the disciples we were trying to found a system, to be too frank about frailty and failures would sound the death-knell to our system, Yet in the Gospels the disciples tell the truth, no matter what light in which it throws themselves. Peter’s denial is not covered; the forsaking of the disciples is clearly told; the selfishness and sinful ambitions for chief room is not minimized; yet there is no false attempt to use these failures to further any schemes, but only the forthright telling of facts. The Bible paints the biographies of its heroes with honest clarity, "Warts and all."
2, Another element in the moral sublimity of the Bible is its lack of any teaching of immorality.
Every man-made so-called sacred book in some places go counter to man’s innermost convictions of ethical goodness. When man writes a Bible, ho always allows in some places for his own desires for the unlawful -- as in Mohammed's Koran. He makes all kinds of allowances for his own thievish and licentious desires. There is no flaw in the Bible’s code of ethics. It is complete; nothing could be added to complete it. And likewise in no instance can it be proven to admonish men to commit an immoral act.
3. Another clement in the moral sublimity of the Bible is its exalted conceptions of God. Just review the teachings of the Bible about God and then the contemporary conceptions of God in all pagan mythology. There is no
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comparison. Their gods were gods of lusts and hate, and in bowing and worshipping them became like the' gods they worshipped. The Bible alone among all the books of earth gives the picture of a God worth worshipping and following.
4. The Bible alone exalts man, giving him an origin befitting his position, and elevating him above the brute. It alone gives him as coming from God, responsible to God, and his end the glory of God.
5. The Bible by some power all its own works moral revolutions in the characters of men,
Men have- studied books on every subject imaginable and been none the whit better morally for all their efforts. But no one can read this Book consistently, constantly, and honestly without finding an imperceptible change at first taking place, then more marked, There is oven in the unconverted mind a sense of duty to do right, a standard to be attained. And when there is conversion, God's Word is very quick in its influence toward godliness.
And so from whatever field of evidence the moral sublimity of the Scriptures is studied, we find an impassable gulf between this book and all others. I say that it is one link in a long chain of evidence of the Divine inspiration of the Bible, It is the only book in all the world which teaches the way of man's recovery from sin as a moral revolution by means of an internal transformation by regeneration. And so the list would. be enlarged. But this marked moral tone must be accounted for. Could it come out of the heart of a fallen man? Could the water rise above its own level? Could man out of the filth of his own nature conceive such moral beauty and holiness as this? The truth is, it is not the discovery of man, but the revelation of God of Himself, and His will to man.II. THE HISTORICAL ACCURACY OF THE BIBLE
While the Bible was not written as a treatise on history, yet it contains more real history than any other book in all the world, past, present or future, and more and more of it is being authenticated by the archaeologists.
Because the Bible-was not written for history, therefore many say it doesn't make any difference whether it is historically accurate or not, "Only so long as we can derive the spiritual lessons, But you must be careful."
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If you leave a hole large enough to let the cat in, all the little kittens can come in too." If you cannot rely upon the historical accounts of the Bible, how can you be sure you can rely upon the spiritual lessons? God couldn't build a spiritual truth upon a historical lie. If it could be positively proved that no such man as Moses over led the children of Israel out of Egypt, how could I accept the moral teachings of the law as binding upon my soul? This is exactly the attack of modernism and higher critics of the Bible. They have tried every conceivable means to prove the Bible as lying on the subject of science, history, and other incidentals; for by so doing they prove the Bible as nothing but human, and without authority then in matters spiritual. There is the battle ground. A message from God, given by Divine inspiration, would certainly be accurate historically as well as spiritually. Let us see how the critics treat this phase. What is their case against the Bible.
In Bruce Barton's book The Book Nobody Knows (especially himself) he tries to destroy the real inspiration of the Bible,. Particularly does he try to place Daniel end Esther in trouble. He says, "They are splendid pieces of propaganda" (?), written to lift the spirits of the Jews in captivity. He further says, "If this be true, it doesn’t detract from our pleasure in reading the two books or from the value of the purpose for which they were written" (P. 245). I'll say it does detract; for if they are not historically accurate, then they are clever forgeries and a parcel of lies and have no right in the Sacred Canon. And God had nothing to do with them, and anything they say is not for me to follow. And the purpose of their writings is understood to be different from Barton's view.
Well, lot us see how Barton reached this monstrous important conclusion. Certainly he must have infallible evidence to so speak. Surely he must have weighty evidence and adequate proof. Here is the proof (?)(p. 86)- "These two are heroic figures, Daniel and Esther, and it is sad indeed to be told that science (?) in digging around among the ruins of these far-away times have been unable to find a trace of a prime minister named or a Queen called Esther." He concludes from his weighty evidence that we are forced reluctantly to conclude that these two books are then splendid pieces of Jewish propaganda.
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Now isn't that splendid reasoning? By that line of reasoning I can prove that there was never such a thins as a Declaration of Independence, emancipation for the slaves.
How? Well, in the great Chicago fire the original was destroyed--nothing but men's memory in the now existing one is evidence; so I am reluctantly led to conclude that it is but a splendid piece of political propaganda. That is just as reasonable. Absence of evidence is no evidence against any piece of positive evidence. Because I produce a lock of hair from Alexander the Great head is no indication that he never lived. What if our courts operated upon such a conception of evidence? But it goes on just the opposite. We could give many more instances of the down-right dishonesty of the critics of the Bible on this matter--such as the case of Washington Gladden. He admits that the inscriptions found on the stones around ancient Nineveh prove many points in the Biblical account but finds, he says, "a few against the Bible." (He didn't name oven the few.) Where is his preference? And not one, by the way, is contending for the infallibility of the Nineveh in the writings on the stones. They could have been wrong, but Gladden will accept them and reject the Bible just because out of maybe a hundred inscriptions for the Bible three seem to go against it. I went him to name oven these three, though, first. Prof. Ira M. Price, of The University of Chicago, and Rawlison and many more of the archaeologists do not agree with Gladden.
To my mind it is a marvelous thing that God has kept the secret of archaeology for so many centuries and millenniums to have it brought forth in this skeptical age as a voice from the grave to confirm the Bible. The very books most attacked and ridiculed as erroneous have been the very ones most confirmed by archaeology. Is the Bible his historically inaccurate? Let us see. The spade of archaeology more and more confirms the Bible, or more accurately, the Bible more and more confirms archaeology.
Higher criticism for a long time said, "The Hittites of the Old Testament were fictitious." They based this on the same evidence that Bruce Barton used on Daniel and Esther. They said, "There is no evidence in secular history that the Hittites ever existed." For a long time this was a sore spot; and because of the lack of secular evidence,. the argument couldn't be answered positively, only negatively., Now this is important, as the Hittites according, to the Biblical account were a powerful people and mentioned. In 7 different books of the Bible and in 33 different referencesCHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS - THE BIBLE - PART II Page32
For some time there was in the British Museum a "Hall of Stones." Most of those stones were of one type and evidently of one people. No one could decipher them, a strange language unknown to the translator or decipherer. A few years ago some eminent scholars started to work on deciphering those stones. They accomplished the difficult task and found it to be a detailed account of the Hittites. So modern criticism must eat humble pie, and secular history changed to coincide with the Bible
One after another the critics have turned out the history of the Old Testament as invalid, only to have to confusedly change their attack as archaeology confirmed the Bible record. Just when they say, "Such and such a character never lived," out comes a stone and inscription with that individual's name and address (and if they had had it, their telephone number.) They would say, "Such and such a city like Ur of the Chaldees, never existed." But in would to a evade of archaeology and out would come the existence of the city’s existence, as the Bible says. We could not begin to give all the wonderful results of archaeology; they would fill volumes, end do fill them. It is worth while to buy some of thorn, and find out the authenticity of the Bible accounts on the point of history.
Many were the jokes about the table of nations in Gen. 10. The evolutionists claim there couldn't have been such well developed nations that far back. Prof. Ira M. Price of the University of Chicago says, “Inscriptions on the monuments recently discovered verify the accuracy of more than 30 of the names in the table of Gen. 10, indicating both places and Peoples.”
In the explorations of the ruins of ancient Nineveh, Sir A. R. Layard found the ruined library buried under the ruins of Konyunjik. This library contained verifications of all of the first 14 chapters of Genesis.
So with the Egyptologists. They have verified the disputed stories of Joseph, the kings of Egypt mentioned in the Bible, and the date of Exodus. And. in the treasure chambers of the king reigning in the time of the Exodus, the walls of brick construction, 8 to 10 feet thick, were made some of bricks with straw and some without. That sounds like the account in Exodus 1. Nearly 300 historical statements of the. Old Testament have been confirmed by Egyptologists. So in digging, around the ruins of ancient Jericho, they found evidence of the consternation of the inhabitants when attacked; and the walls wore found to have fallen outward, not inward as when beaten down by attackers.
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The story of the flood, long ridiculed and thrown out, is now proven by geology, which gives abundance of evidence that all the earth was once immersed in water, by sea shells on the highest mountains and layers of sea settlement high in earth strata. Likewise by eight separate accounts it is found in various countries, among even the Chinese. Even the King of Mesopotamia, in recent inscriptions found, dated himself so many years after the flood.
Secular history has always had its staring gaps when dealing with dates B.C. It is during these gaps that critics have sought to find charges of historical inaccuracy against the Bible. But the spade of archaeology is closing those gaps in secular history, and confirming the Biblical account. Soon they will hove no ground in this argument and have to just show themselves for what they are -- pure unbelievers, and Bible haters.Textbooks on history need constant revising in the light of archaeology; hut if they had filled in the gaps from the Biblical history; they would have had a true record and Saved paper and ink. Someone said, "Already over 2000 mistakes have boon found in the best ancient histories known to man."
How different the Bible is to every history over written by man, which needs revising, footnotes of correction, and sometimes whole new chapters of correction. No history ever written by man outside of the history in the Bible, ancient or modern, but what shows the tendency of the human historians to error, if not to a willful falsification. Most historians twist history to fit their own theories of history. There never has been published a history of England, the United States, or France, of our Civil War, any period,
or any historical event, but that there were misrepresentations and mistakes, Herodotus with great labor prepared a history of ancient Egypt. Modern exploration, bringing: to light the buried art and inscriptions of ancient Egypt, has shown that Herodotus was misinformed. It became necessary to have "an annotated Herodotus" in which his errors are corrected by the indisputable evidence from the monuments, Now the work of Moses as a historian, deals extensively with ancient Egyptian history of 35 to 40 centuries ago. IT HAS NOT BECOME NECESSARY IN A SINGLE SOLITARY CASE TO ADD A FOOTNOTE CORRECTING NOSES. We need no annotated Moses, no marginal note correcting the historical accuracy of Noses. That is nothing less than miraculous, proving the inspiration of Hoses. No matter what ruins of Egypt is explored, which says anything about the time Noses wrote and about the subjects with which he dealt, there. is without a single exception the confirmation the very smallest detail the Moses account.CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS - THE BIBLE - PART II Page34
If any human being had ever written a history without a single error in any detail in any line, in any account of his work, the literary world would acclaim it as nothing short of miraculous; and from every man-made history it can be seen that it would he miraculous. It proves the Divine inspiration of Moses. There Is plenty of room or field for investigation. Moses wrote freely of the times, the events, the kings, the customs, the high state of civilization and culture, the wanderings of Israel, and nations they met in Palestine.
This then is the line of reasoning which gives strong evidence that this Book in its historical writings and Lord of God.III. THE SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY OF THE BIBLE
It is true that the Bible wasn't written as a textbook on science. If it were, I would find there the most wonderful science in all the world. God knows all the hidden mysteries of this world that man by searching has never been able to find out. But even if the Bible were not written as a discourse on science, I expect it to contain true science wherever it touches on the subject of science. I wouldn't expect it to contain the foolishness pawned off as science in the day in which the Bible was written, the. Same argument holds here that held, in the historical accuracy of the Bible. The God of the Bible is the God over all nature. He Who inspired men to write, built the universe. I would not expect the Bible to be couched in scientific language:, which would be intelligible only to the scientific mind; for the Bible was written for all classes of people, I expect it to use the common. idioms of speech, such as the phrases as "the sun setting" etc, But wherever the Bible deals with science I expect it to be true science, not fable. I even expect to find in it some scientific truth above not only the times in which it is written but transcendent to all times. As a good illustration of that, the scientific treatise on the origin of man in Gen. 1 and 2. Washington Gladden says, "The Bible is not scientifically infallible.," For he says, "The narrative of creation in the first chapter of Genesis while it presents a most remarkable counterpart to the discoveries of science (He didn't tell us how Moses wrote such scientific counterparts so long before science knew anything about such things, if he didn't write by inspiration). cannot be said to be totally precisely with theCHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS - THE BIBLE - PART II Page35
records written on the rocks, so far at any rate as they have been read at present." He cannot admit that science's reading of the rocks could be and is wrong. The science of geology has had to be completely revised. The same God Who wrote ages on the rocks inspired the Book. He further admits that the first chapters of Genesis gives us the foundation of all scientific knowledge today. But here is the question, "How " this wonderful scientific knowledge written by a man who lived in a time of great falsehoods on cosmogony? This is the very proof of the ins inspiration of the Bible. He wrote of things he couldn't possibly have known anything about.
Whenever you speak of testing the Bible on scientific grounds, oven some of its friends are afraid of the test. In this testing we need not expect the Bible to use scientific phraseology, but it uses the languages of appearances, as even all nations do today. When it speaks of the dew falling from heavens, there is not the teaching of an unscientific thing, hub the language of appearance. Of how much use would the Bible be to all men in all times if it had been written in scientific jargon?
And so do not expect the Bible to agree with each new reading of the rocks -- each new so-called scientific discovery. It has never agreed with evolution, even as evolution has never agreed with facts. There is a vast amount of laws in nature man knows nothing about; as a few years ago radio would have been a miracle, but the understanding of more laws made it possible, Science is and must be an incomplete knowledge. It should he meek and not too dogmatic. Prof. Dana said, "The grand old Book of God still stands; and this old earth - the more its leaves are turned over and pondered, the more it will sustain and illustrate the sacred word," So do not got afraid every time some two - by - four thinker tries to refute the Bible by science. A skeptical young man once flippantly inquired of a devout farmer, "Don’t you know that science has disprove the Bible?" He replied, "What science? I haven't read the :morning papers today."
1. Let us consider first the creation in the opening chapters of the Bible. What if the Bible contained the stories of creation that mythology contains? The very writings of to day in which the Bible was written? That if it had the sane errors that contemporary writings, both philosophical and sacred had? Were is creation’s star; from Hinduism "Millions upon millions of cycles are this world came to be (here science asCHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS - THE BIBLE - PART II Page 36
from where and by whom), It was made a flat triangular plain with high hills and mountains and great waters. It exists in several stories, and the whole mass is held up on the heads of elephants with their tails turned out and their feet rest on the shell of an immense tortoise, and tortoise on the coil of a great snake, and when the elephants shake themselves, that causes earthquakes." So with all the other so-called sacred books, What if the Bible contained such nonsense? What if the Bible contained the evolutionary theory of creation? ALL SCIENCE WOULD HAVE THROWN IT OUT LONG AGO.
Herbert Spencer said he could never be a Christian according to the Bible until the. Christian world, could find an explanation in the Bible of the five creative periods that science demands there must be: namely, creation of time, creation of space, creation of matter, creation of force, creation of motion. (And science never has told how they came.) But the Bible does, 40 centuries ago. Moses in the first verse of the Bible tells all five: "In the beginning (that is time) God created the heaven (that is the space) and the earth (that is the matter); and the Spirit of God (that is force) moved on the face of the- deep." (that is motion). There is more science in the first verse of the Bible than in all scientific works combined; for not a one has been able to discover that much. We could say more of the order of creation in Genesis to creative periods, the crowning of man as the highest order, etc., but it would fill a book.
2. ASTRONOMY
The stars have always boon a mystery to the ancients. They tried to explain thorn on all kinds of grounds, from hanging lights lighted by the gods and suspended from the roof. One very scientific explanation was that the earth was built like a cone with the horizon curving upward in a dome over our heads; this demo was a glaze, and through little holes in it the light shone through, thus the stars. Others conceived the heavens as solid crystal layers, one on top of another like the layers of an onion, each layer containing stars. The stars could not support themselves, hence the crystal dome holding them up. This was the thought of the greatest philosophers. Aristotle added the thought that the various layers of crystals in the movements rubbed each other, giving us heat and light. What if those things
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were in the Bible? And they would be if it had been written by men. For they dealt with wonderful things and stirred up imagination, end if left to themselves, they would have speculated freely. Lot us turn now to some few statements made in the astronomical things, and see how they compare to the best-known scientific truths.
Let us see for instance on the number of the stars. Hipparchus, who wrote at the same time as Jeremiah charted the heavens and numbered 1,022 stars. Ptelemyn, a later scientist, could only add 4 more, On a clear night with the naked eye we can see but 1,160, or if we could see the whole heavens, only 3,000. And yet Jeremiah 33: 22 says, "The host of the heavens cannot be numbered." How unscientific in his day to made such a statement, or "as the sands of the sea. shore." How unscientific in the light of the facts then known (Gen. 15:5). No scientist of Abraham's clay would dare to compare the stars with the sands or dust of the earth for multitude,
But when the telescope was invented, man's visions extended; the best telescope now counts 1 1/2 billion in our Milky Way. Our universe, this Milky way, according to the estimate of Prof. Eddington, has nearly 30 billion stars; and one late scholar estimates 170 billion stars. But the island universe of Andromeda, a separate universe like our Milky Way contains at least a billion stars; and there -arc 30 to 70 million of those island universes like Andromeda. each with a billion or maybe 200 billion stars like our universe See how the accuracy of Jeremiah 600 years before Christ or Moses 4000 years ago, was, "The numberless ness of the host of heaven, Like the dust of the ground for multitude." Where did Moses and Jeremiah learn astronomy like that? Not in the courts of Egypt or from scientists (?) of the clay in which they lived. We only learned the truth 300 years ago. Who told Jeremiah and Moses? Here is proof of the Divine inspiration of the Bible. as men wrote outside of their times. It is no wonder that the Scriptures, in seeking an unlimited difference between our wisdom and God's, gives the 1argest thing possible: "As high as the heavens are above the earth.. so are God’s thoughts above our thoughts." How did he know that was the greatest measure?
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Who told Job of a hole in the north? Job. 26:7-- "He stretched out the North over the empty space." The earthly telescopes could detect no empty space in the north; so Job was called unscientific. Some theologians meekly confessed, "Job knew nothing about the geography of the heavens." But recently Prof. Loomis of Yale University said, "Recently by use of the largest telescope in the northern hemisphere, in the Naval Observatory in Washington, a great vacuum corresponding to the 'empty space’ of the which Job wrote has been discovered in the depths of the northern heavens." How did Job know when even the first large telescopes couldn’t find it? It is known as the center of our Milky Way; no light comes through it. We don’t know what lies beyond it, but in it is the force to hold our universe together.
There is the statement of the apostle Paul written a couple of millenniums ago: "One star different from another star" -- I Cor. 15:41 How did he know so many centuries before, only the most advanced science knew, that the stars are not all alike? Even the invention of the telescope, which enlarged man's knowledge about the moon and planets -- our near neighbors —, didn't tell us that the one star
differed from another star. The largest telescope ever invented still leaves the star as only a pinpoint of light in a vast expanse of heaven. It is only the latest invention of the spectroscope which has revealed that Paul knew what he was talking about. With this instrument analyzing the light from these far-off’ bodies, man can observe the differences in size, which way and comparatively how fast they are traveling. The spectroscope reveals that some stars, by the analysis of their light, are vastly larger and different in composition from others. The spectrum reveals how much energy each square inch of its surface emits. The largest stars are red in color, and are cooling off. They arc much cooler than some others. These large cool stars give: off only about a 1/4 horsepower per square inch of surface. Antares is an incandescent mass of inconceivable proportions, It is L100 million miles in diameter, and could hold 60 millions of our suns in its bulk. But on the other hand, there are stars not much bigger than the earth which are white in color; they radiate thousands of times more energy per square inch than the larger red stars. The amount of such a star as would cover an envelope gives off enough energy to run all the steamers of the ocean.CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS - THE BIBLE - PART II Page39
Sirius B., which revolves around Sirius the Dog Star is blue in color; it is only one thirty-seventh as large as our sun, but gives almost four times as much energy. it is only twenty-seven times as large as the earth, yet contains 316,000 times as much material; each cubit inch of it on the earth's surface would weigh 2300 pounds. Platinum, the heaviest metal on earth--or thing, has specific gravity of 21.5, but it is discovered that Sirius:. D. has density of 53,000.
It is about 4 times as hot as the sun, causing the denser matter; the intense heat forces the electron into closer formation. But some of the cooler stars are so light and loose that they are little more than a gaseous mass.
Where did Paul find out "one star different from another star"?
Then there is the subject of the refraction of light, The ancients all believed, and had as an absolute tenet of science, that a sunbeam or ray of light always traveled in a straight line. But Job 38:12-13 taught over 40 centuries ago that light curved. "Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days, and caused the day spring to know his place; that it might take hold of the ends of the earth." Literally, it roads, "bend around like the fingers and so lay hold." It is poetical language, but it teaches, nevertheless the law of the refraction of light. When the rays of the sun encounter the earth's atmosphere at an angle, the indirect part of the ray is caught by the atmosphere and bent around the earth like the fingers of the hand. Dr. Albert Einstein demonstrated that light is bent not only by this refraction, but by gravitation also. Parts of the earth would be untenable were it not for the refraction of light.
There is the fact of the earth being hung from space by invisible bonds, Job 26:7--"God stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing." Where could Job find that out in his day? Hero is true cosmogony forty centuries sooner than man found it out. Even Sir Isaac Newton could only imagine his law of gravitation reaching out far enough to somehow hold the moon; but he couldn't conceive of its reaching all the way from the sun to the earth and holding it. The earth is hung from the sun by this invisible cord of gravitation.CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS - THE BIBLE - PART II Page 40
There is the teaching of the roundness of the earth when all science believed it to be flat, square, solid through, all the way down. to the core. Smart men like Plato and Aristotle believed it to be square. But long before Columbus sailed or Plato philosophized, God told Isaiah that He was the "That sitteth upon the circle of the earth." Isa. 40:22.
There is the word firmament of Genesis. Modern astronomy has taken exception to this word in the Bible. They say it teaches that there is a crystal dome over the earth from which is suspended the stars. We see how the Bible has taught true astronomy there. From this word firmament, Mr. Goodwin said, "It is irreconcilable to modern astronomy." But I say that Moses was not using the word 'firmament' in any such meaning as a crystal dome. Note the language of the Scriptures, and the clear scientific teaching which was 40 centuries ahead of Mr. Goodwin’s. First note this: Job 37:6 -- "Dost thou know the balancing of the clouds?" We take the passing clouds for granted, yet the most profound physical laws of nature and physics knew the need of an expanse of clear air between the clouds and earth in order for it to be the best place for man to live, or live at all. For if there were not this clear air between the earth and the clouds, it would always be damp, misty, foggy, upon the earth; and it would be unwholesome.
So God prepared for it in creation. See Gen. 1:6-8 -- "Let there be firmament in the midst of the waters, and God thus divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament." Clouds are gaseous water, above the firmament, while the earth had not been made yet to stand out of the sea of water which was under the firmament. Now this firmament here could not be solid, but should be understood as "expanse." It couldn't be solid, as the clouds are above it, "balancing upon it," and the water comes through it; and birds are said to fly through the firmament of the heavens. Only the most wonderful combination of pairs of atoms having affinity for each other makes this "balancing of the clouds" possible, showing foresight and purpose.
There is much more in astronomy we could give, such as the "calling of light good" in Genesis; and the expression of Christ borrowed from the truth of nature, "the light of life." Light is found by recentCHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS - THE BIBLE - PART II Page41
science to be the life of all things. There is the rotation of the earth spoken of in Job. 38::14...--"It is turned as clay to the seal." In the British Museum they have a cylindrical rotary press, teaching both the rotation of the earth and its roundness. We could speak of the Scriptural statement just found out by science that the earth and universe, instead of climbing the ladder, are descending It. It is wearing out; it started all wound up and is winding down, rather than starting wound down and winding up. Every particle of the universe is breaking down from the complex to the singular, expending itself. Psa. 102:25-27 -- "Of old hast Thou laid the foundations of the earth; and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shall Thou change them, and they shall be changed; but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall have no end." Isa. 51:6 gives the same, "The heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth wax old like a garment."
We could mention, too, the science of isostacy, or the principle of the proportion of mountain masses to their foundations, and quote Job, "He has weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance." Job 38:3-6, of laying the foundations of the earth by measure, and drawing a line (equator).
3. PHYSIOLOGY
Who told Moses that the life of the flesh is in the blood? Lev. 17:11; and yet all physicians even up to Washington's time held a light view of the blood and thought "bleeding" was the cure all. Washington's death was probably hastened by the bleeding his physician gave him.
Who told Paul that the blood of all men was the same basic type, Interchangeable one with another? There are but a few broad types of blood for transfusion purposes, and it is profitable to only give the one type of the same type; but English blood will work in a Negro, etc. "He hath made of one blood all nations that dwell upon the earth," Acts 17:26. Who told Solomon that the blood circulates through the body? Harvey only found it out 2600 years later; yet in the poetic language of the 12 chapters
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of Ecclesiastes verse six, Solomon intimates the pitcher broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, shows the heart as a pump.
How did Job find out the fact of dentistry which has been used as a proverb for 40 centuries?-- "skin of my teeth" for the narrowness of escape. Job 19:20. The dentist has just recently found out the truth of that proverb; the teeth really have a skin.
4.. NATURAL PHILOSOPHY
The Bible teaches the atmosphere has weight. Science knew nothing of this until a matter of a couple hundred years ago. Yet it is taught along with a kindred truth in Job 28:25 (the greatest treatise on true science in the world outside of Gen. 1 and 2) --"To assign to the wind (atmosphere or breath) its weight and to waters their just measures." To man air seems without weight and was so thought for millenniums. It wasn"t until Galileo, who discovered the gravity of the air. And yet God revealed it to Job at least 30 centuries before Galileo. The weight of air is approximately 15 pounds to the square inch. It is proved that it exerts a pressure downward at all points of 15 pounds.
But here is another truth: the proportioned waters of earth--about three-fourths of the earth's surface is water. Science of meteorology has found out this is the needed proportion for the best atmospheric conditions on earth.
Solomon in Eccles. 1:6,7 found out long before Redfield the truth of evaporation of water into the clouds and descending in rain, and back again.
We could here name many more scientific accuracies of the Word, but must confine ourselves to one more. It is true throughout that there are no false scientific statements In the Bible; where it has seen fit to state a scientific truth, It is true science
This last thought is the music of the spheres. Here is a most wonderful thought. All of the universe is singing, if we had but the ears to hear its music.
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Science is very far behind the Bible in discovering this. How late it is that the discovery of the vibration of all things is a reality. All things are