THE K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
809
stead of the authority and inerrancy of Jesus Christ. Twenty-five years or so ago I was talking with a good man and a sound man, but not a very clear and far-seeing thinker, about the destructive criticism as it stood then. He said, in talking of some of the more mildly destructive theories, “They tell me it does not touch any vital point any way, and what dif ference does it make whether Isaiah wrote the later chapters of the book, or whether some one else wrote them?” I told him that this was only the enter ing wedge. I urged him to look to where it would lead and where it would end. It has led to, and ended where, I then pre dicted it would. Any smallest insect of destructive criticism is like the little borer ant which gets into the underpin ning of Hawaiian houses, and bbrfeS and bores away unseen, until suddenly the whole house collapses. Believe the Bible, believe the whole Bible. It will prove in the ultimate outcome every time, that it is either the whole Bible or else no Bible at all. Today it is Prof. Kent as he was fifteen years or so ago, tomor row it is Prof. Kent as he is today, next day it is a critic who puts Bob Ingersoll all in the shade, and the next day it will be the Devil himself, laughing and jab bering and mocking, saying, “Yea, hath God said?” II . Study the Bible. In the second place, Study the Bible. There is in the Bible the truth that will safeguard you against every error of these times or apy times, but this truth, though it is there, will not safe guard you unless you see it and know it, and you will not see it and know it unless you study long and earnestly the book in which it is found. The Bible has no hocus-pocus power. It has power only by the truth it con tains. And to see that truth and feel its power, you must study, study, study the Bible. You have been studying it very hard for two long years, and many of
you had studied it very hard for years before you came here. Do you think you know all there is in it? Ah me, Sir Isaac Newton, the greatest thinker of his time along the lines of natural science, was once congratulated by a friend on the wide extent of his knowl edge. But Sir Isaac Newton humbly and wisely replied, “I am only a child walk ing on the sea shore, picking up a peb ble here and a shell there, and the great ocean of truth liesw unexplored before me.” Every wise student of the Bible would say the same thing, “I am only a child, walking on the sea shore, pick ing up a pebble here and a shell there, but the great ocean of God’s infinite truth lies before me in this book.” I have studied that book every day for fifty years, 18,263 days. There has. not been a single day in fifty years, 18,263 days in all, that I have not read several chapters in that book. For forty-four years I have studied it in English, Hebrew and Greek. Do I know it all? No, no, no, I am still digging, digging, digging. A few suggestions as to how to study it. 1. First of all, Study it daily. There is a deeper significance than most of us see in the words in Acts 17:11, “Now these were more honorable than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the Word with all readiness of mind, examining the scriptures daily, whether these things were so.” Never let a day pass without digging into that book. I have read the whole book through I do not know how many times. I have read the New Testament through in Greek many, many times. I have committed whole chapters; and whole books !to memory, have hid it in my heart; never theless, not a day would I dare let pass that I did not dig into- it again, not one single day. If you could arrange, and you can arrange if you determine to, to give a solid hour every day to Bible study, it would be well.
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs