Wherein the Bible Differs from all Other Books s Sermon by Dr. R. A. Torrey, Dean, to the Graduating Class of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, June 25, 1916 (All rights reserved)
o f its style, but because o f the profundity o f its teaching. No other book is more simple in its style than the Bible. Its style is so simple and clear that a child can understand it, but its truth is so profound that we explore the Book from childhood to old age and can never say we have reached the bottom. However deep we go there are always deeper depths beneath. For eighteen centuries many o f the great est minds the world has ever known have been attempting to sound its depths, but the bottom is not yet reached. Men o f the greatest possible intellectual reach and power have devoted a lifetime to the study o f this book, but what man has ever dared to say or dream o f saying, “I know now all that the Bible qontains.” If any man should say that he would be unanimously voted a sublime egotist or ah egregious simpleton. Whole generations o f scholars have devoted their lives to the study o f this book, each generation having the advan tage o f the labors and researches and dis coveries o f preceding generations, but can even the latest generation say, “W e have discovered it all now, there is nothing left in the Bible for the next generation to dis cover?” The whole human race has been unable not only to exhaust, but to fathom this Book. Well may we exclaim with the Psalmist, “ Thy judgments are a great deep” (Ps. 36:6). The judgments o f God, God’s thoughts as revealed in this Book, are beyond any man and beyond any gen eration o f men. They are beyond the whole race. This Book, like God’s other book, the book o f nature, and unlike any book o f man, is unfathomable and inexhaustible
HE prophet that hath a , dream, let him tell a dream ; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faith fully. What is-the straw to
the wheat? saith the LORD.”—Jer. 23:28. The Bible stands absolutely alone. It is an- entirely unique book. All other mes sages compared with the message o f the Bible are as chaff compared with wheat. The attempt to compare the Bible with other books as if it were one o f a class, possibly the best o f the class, arises either from ignorance or thoughtlessness, or the fixed determination to do the Bible an in justice. We. shall see this morning that there is none like it. The Bible is not a book, it is the Book. It is an often repeated incident that Sir Walter Scott, when he was dying asked his son-in-law Lockhart to read to him, and that Lock hart asked, “What book shall I read?” to which Sir Walter Scott replied, “There is but one book.” Beyond a question Sir Walter Scott was right. There is really but one Book. But someone may chal lenge the statement that the Bible stands absolutely alone as an entirely unique book. Anyone has a- perfect right to challenge the statement arid demand wherein the Bible differs from all other books, and this morning I propose to take up the chal lenge and answer the question. I. -In Its Depth. First o f all the Bible differs from all other books in its depth. The Bible is unfathomable and inexhaustible. It is unfathomable not because o f the obscurity
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