nore God’s message, they’ll excuse themselves by claiming to see errors in the Bible. Christians will never be able to an swer all the charges of unbelievers. The field of human knowledge is so vast that every man would have to become a specialist in only one small area. But there’s a difference be tween not having the information to prove a thing true, and having infor mation to prove it false. No one has ever had the information to prove the Bible to be false. I don’t care when he lived, or where he lived. If there appears to be a discrepancy be tween the Scriptures and scientific facts the Christian will believe the Bible because God has said it. It doesn't honor your faith to have a craven fear of scientific facts. In the final analysis, truth is the friend, not the foe, of Christianity. Scientific knowledge in itself will not lead to truth. The men of Jesus’ day were not bad weather prophets. Our Lord recognized their ability (Matt. 16:1-4). Yet they were blind to the prophetic biblical signs of the times. It isn’t possible for one to come to an understanding of truth by shutting his eyes to criticism. The Bible can be trusted completely for spiritual truth. P art T hirteen I T’S WONDERFUL to realize that a spiritual teacher affects eternity. He can never tell where his influ ence stops. The miracles of the Bible are an integral part of the divine revelation known as the Bible. The trend of unbelievers is to seek some natural explanation for the miracles found on the pages of Scripture. Why is it that some people will do everything they can to discount the Bible? A miracle is an event in na ture, so extraordinary in itself and so coinciding with the prophecy of a religious teacher or leader as fully to warrant the conviction on the part 28
of those who witnessed it. God has brought it about with the design of certifying that this teacher or leader has been commissioned by the Lord. I Kings 17 relates one of these Old Testament miracles. It hadn’t rained in Israel. God commanded Elijah to go to Cherith where the ravens fed him. These birds brought him “bread and flesh” in the morning and eve ning. Elijah, under the inspiration of God, had predicted that there would be a time of drought. The brook of Cherith itself dried up. The supernatural God cannot be exclud ed. We cannot reject the interven tion of God in the affairs of men. Elijah certainly had no doubt that his God was the God of miracles. The Lord had control of nature’s elements. Baal was recognized by the Canaanites as the storm god, whose worship ushered in the rainy season. Ahab, after his marriage to a wom an from this tribe, went to serve the false god Baal (I Kings 16:31). Be cause of Jezebel’s influence Israel was in danger of having Baal wor ship as her state religion instead of worship of the one true God. No more fitting challenge could have been hurled at Baal and his evil priests than that of withholding rain. Palestine is the land of two seasons, wet and dry. The God who had the power to change that cycle would be the one who had instituted the land (James 5:17). Three and a half years later, when the rains did come, it was at the normal beginning of the dry season. Jehovah was demon strated as the One who controls na ture. We recognize that the Lord often uses natural forces in the perform ance of His miracles. The Lord Jesus Christ demonstrated the control of God the Son over the elements of nature by walking on the Sea of Gali lee. Peter, attempting to imitate Him, sank and faced drowning. The disciples, witnessing Christ’s power, recognize with great awe the mi
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