808 in a time when so many workers, even ministers and theological professors, are making an utter shipwreck of their use fulness? This exceedingly important question is answered in the book itself, indeed it is very largely answered in my text. I. Believe the Bible. First of all, if we are to find safety in the Bible from the multiplying errors and moral perils and other perils of the day, and if we are to have complete furnishment through the Bible for every good work, we must believe the Bible. The Bible exercises its unique and won drous power in those who put unhesitat ing and unwavering confidence in it, and in them alone. The Gospel is “The power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Rom. 1:16), that is, every one who believes the Gospel, and the book in which\that Gospel is set forth, the Bible, displays power unto salvation, salvation not only from the guilt and power of sin, but salvation from soul-destroying error, and salvation from uselessness or comparative uselessness, only in those who believe it, believe it absolutely. When you allow ypurself to entertain doubt as to the absolute reliability of any statement in the Bible,* the Bible loses its power to save you from that error which it exposes. The Unitarian understands that, and so he seeks to undermine our faith in the Gospel of John. The Universalist understands that, and so he seeks to undermine our faith in those passages which clearly set forth the doom of the impenitent. The Christian Scientist understands it, and so he seeks to undermine our faith in those parts of the Bible which lay bare the folly of the many glaring false hoods of Christian Science. The Spir itualist and the Theosophist understand it, and so they seek to undermine ouf faith in those passages that lay bare the Satanic origin of those thoroughly dev ilish creeds. Prof. Kent and his col leagues who hate the precious doctrine
THE K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S of the substitutionary character of the death, of Christ, and the atoning value of His shed blood, and the allied doc trines, understand it also, and so they bring out their “Shorter Bible” that calmly eliminates the passages that con tain these doctrines, eliminates them without one particle of manuscript evi dence, without one particle of textual or any other sanely critical reason for such elimination. Believe the Bible, that is the first, thing to do with the Bible. Believe the whole Bible. Believe not a man-made “Shorter Bible” but a God-made full Bible. Listen to the text again, “Every Scripture is inspired of God, and is prof itable for teaching, for reproof, for cor rection, for instruction in righteous ness.” The Revisers tried to tinker up that verse and make it read differently, but without a particle of reason, indeed against all reason, by changing the posi tion of the word “is” in the verse. But even admitting the correctness of their change, even they have failed to accom plish their object, for there can be no doubt that by “every Scripture inspired of God”, if Paul had used that phrase, he would have meant every scripture of the Old Testament. Believe the whole Bible. The proof that the whole Bible is the Word of God is unanswerable, and therefore the wholeNBible is worthy of your absolute confidence. When you be gin to doubt any part of it, look out. Doubt of that kind is a “leaven” that grows with surprising rapidity, until it has “leavened the whole lump.” When the destructive critics began their work, they began with portions of the Bible that did not seem so vital, but they went on and on until now they do not hesitate to discredit everything that is most fundamental, yes, to discredit the teachings of Jesus Christ Himself, and not only to discredit the teaching, but the conduct of our glorious Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Himself. And they do not hesitate to demand that we ac cept their authority and inerrancy in-
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