THE KING’S BUSINESS
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years ago how he accounted for the spread of Islam. He said that peo ple make a great mistake in thinking that Islam is a natural religion. He said it is a supernatural religion, but supernatural from below. So that the two tests in the Old Testament were these : Is it accurate ? Is it true? ' DIVINE REVELATION. In accordance with this, God is spoken of as the God of truth. The Lord Jesus Christ is described as “the Truth.” The Holy Spirit has as one of His titles—“the Spirit of Truth.” And we are told that every one that is of the truth heareth Christ’s voice (John 18:37). Now let us proceed step by step in regard to this question of Divine revelation. I. I think I.shall carry.you all with me when I say that Revelation is pos sible. If we believe that God exists and is Almighty, then of course He can. communicate Himself to us. No one will deny the possibility of a rev elation, unless he is prepared to deny the existence of God. The Bible pre supposes, takes for granted, the exist ence of God, and never attempts to prove it. “In the beginning •God !” We must learn to do the same. Rev elation is possible, because God is, and is Almighty. II .Revelation is probable .—We ought to agree with this, for the rea son that self-revelation is natural to us. We cannot help communicating ourselves to others. Interest and love prompt the communication of self. Since, then, God is .love, the fact that He is love implies that He will —-I was going to say that He must ■—-communicate Himself, because it is the essence of love to reveal itself. Love would not be love unless it com municated itself to others. Therefore the fact that God is love suggests
possible to have communication with and from God. No one can read the Old Testament or the New without seeing indications that' the writers at any rate believed that they could and did receive communications from God. In Gen. 15:1, we first have the statement which is frequently found afterwards: “The word of the Lord came.” In the prophets again and again we find what is found in Ezek. 6 :1: “The word of the Lord came unto me.” In the Book of Leviticus, something like thirty times we read: “The . Lord spake unto Moses.” In the New Testament, John the Baptist, the last and greatest of the prophets, has the same prophetic experience— Luke 3 :2: “The word of God came unto John.” When we turn to the Epistles we find this in 1 Cor. 14:37: “Let a man acknowledge that the things which I write are the com mandments of the Lord” ; and in 1 Thess. 4:15: “This we say unto you by the word of the Lord.” A mod ern writer has well said that the prophets were absolutely convinced of receiving communications from God. Now there are two tests given in the Old Testament in regard to this matter. There were two ways in which the Israelites were to examine the credentials of every man who claimed to be a prophet of the Lord. In Deut. 18:21, 22, they were to know by the fulfillment; and with this can be compared Jer. 28:9— if the thing came to pass it was re garded as accredited. But then there was another and complementary test. They were to know by the genuine ness of the thing whether it came from the Lord (Deut. 13:1-5). It might come to pass and yet not be genuine. Just as there are spiritual istic media today, sometimes genuine communications I doubt not, but not, therefore, necessarily from God. 1 remember asking Dr. Zwemer some
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