King's Business - 1917-04

THE KING’S BUSINESS

299

people. The investigations of compara­ tively recent years have proven the Bible right, and the critics utterly wrong. The skeptics' of my early years made merry over the Bible mention of light before there was a sun, but today every man of science knows that according to the gen­ erally accepted nebular hypothesis there was light, cosmic light before the sun became a separate body, and he also knows that even after the sun had become a separate body and the earth had been thrown off from the sun and the moon from the earth, that such dense clouds surrounded the earth for a long period of time that no light either from sun or moon could reach the earth, and that after­ wards the clouds became thin and dissi­ pated and then, and only then, in that day, or period, of the earth’s history, did the ,sun and moon appear as definite heavenly bodies, giving light upon the earth by day or night. A very few years ago the destructive critics ridiculed the 14th chap­ ter of Genesis and its mention of Amra- phel, whom they asserted was an alto­ gether mythical character, and many of them asserted that Abraham himself was a mythical character, but inscriptions made by this very Amraphel, or to use the mod­ ern name Hammurabbai, have been dis­ covered, and a code of laws issued by him has been found, a code of a very lofty character, and now instead of sneering at Amraphel 9 s a mythical character, the critics are trying to make us believe that Moses derived his legislation from him. The greatest scientist that America pro­ duced in the nineteenth century, my own friend and beloved instructor in geology, Prof. Dana, said, “The grand old book of God still stands; and this old earth the more its leaves are turned and pondered, the more will it sustain and illustrate the sacred word." Eighteen centuries of triumphant history and eighteen centuries of accumulating confirmation show that the Bible is not in any peril.

II. T h e Bible is n o t in d a n g e r b ecau se it m eets a n d satisfies th e deepest needs of m an in ev ery g en eratio n . Arthur Hallam said, “I see that the Bible fits into every fold and crevice of the human heart.” This is true, but more than this is true. The Bible has an answer to every cry of the human soul, a balm for every wound of the human/heart, a .supply for every need of man. What are the deeper needs of man? 1. First of all, the need of pardon and peace. We are all sinners. We may try to dispute or obscure that fact, but we all know it is true. The Christian Scientist may assert that there is really no such thing as sin, that sin is only “mortal thought,” or “illusion,” and, yet the Chris­ tian Scientist himself shows that he really believes that there is such a thing as sin by his holding other men responsible for their wrong acts. New theologians of the Reginald Campbell type may assert that the supposed fall of man was a fall upward, and that even man when he gets drunk or goes into lust is seeking after God, but in our deeper moments we all know that this is utter nonsense. In our deepest moments we all know we are not right and though we may try to question it, we also fear that there is a holy God to whom we shall have to give answer for this sinful life of ours, and even if there is not such a holy God we know we shall have to give answer to our own consciences, whose accu­ sations like Banquo’s ghost, will not down. Man is a sinner. Every man is a sinner.. The great question then is, is there, any place where pardon from God and peace in our own consciences can be found? The Bible answers this all-important question. It tells us that pardon and peace can be found in Jesus Christ through His atoning blood, and when we seek pardon and peace in Him we find that what the Bible says on this point is true. There are many on every hand who can testify that they have found pardon and peace in Jesus Christ to whom the Bible pointed them. Years ago in Chicago a woman came to me who had been in a very real hell for fourteen years.

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