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THE I KING’S BUSINESS
which-he read was this, He was led as a sheep to. the slaughter ;; and like a Iambi dumb bef'pre his shearer, so opened he not his mouth: 33 . In his humiliation his judgment was taken away I qnd who shgll declare his generation? fo r his life is taken from , the earth., 34 . And Jhe eunitch answered Philip,'and said, l pray thee, o f whom speaketh the prophet this? of him self, or of some other man? " 35 . Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus. 36 . And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? 3 f . And philip said, I f thou believ- est with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son o f God. ,, 38 ... And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went■down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. I. What the Bible Is. There are many names used in these two passages to designate the writings, or parts o f them, that we call the Bible. “Law, tes timony, statutes, commandments,” bu t. all are linked up with the Lord: It is, “the law o f the Lord,” and so on. To the Psalmist those parts o f our Bible that he possessed. were God’s communication of His will to. men, not merely a- message from men, though they came through men. See, 2 Peter 1 :21. David had no difficulty in accepting ¡this, no matter how hard it may be for some moderns to do so. In fact he claimed that this was trufe o f what 7 he himself wrote. /See 2 Samuel 23:1, 2. This is the uniform ■claim of the writers o f the. Old Testament books. . See Moses, —Exodus 4:10-12; 2Num. 12:1-9, etc.,; Joshua—Josh. 1:1, 7, 8 ; 24:2, 26, 27; Isaiah—Isa. 6 : 1 ,' 8 , 9; Jeremiah—Jer. 1:6-9; 15:16; ,EzekiatifEzek. 3:16, 17, 26, 27. Look up the other books o f the prophets and note that they declare their message to be “the word o f the Lord.” The phrase, “ the Lord spake,” or phrases o f similar
3 Ç. And when they were come up out o f the water, the Spirit .o f the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more : and he went on his way rejoicing.- * * * 7 . The law o f the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. 8 . The statutes o f the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the com mandment o f the Lord is pure, enlightening the dyes. ' p. The fear o f the Lord is clean, enduring forever: the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous alto gether. 10 . M ore to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. . ii. Moreover bv them is thy ser vant warned: and in keeping o f them there is great reward. Hunter. import, occur 19Q4 times in the Old Tes tament. Only one conclusion can be drawn from this. Either these men told the truth, and in that case the message is God’s message and authoritative ; or they told what is not true, and the message is their own and o f no higher authority than any other message from fallen humanity. If they told what was untrue regarding the 'origin o f the message, what 1 about the contents o f the message? Good men would not misrepresent the origin ;.ç>f their mes sage and bad men could not write such a message. No ! “ The writing (was. the writing o f God”—Ex. 32 :16'. In the New Testament passage the word used .is:„“ scripture” ' or ‘‘scriptures.’’ . This refers to the sacred books o f the Jews, our present Old Testament. The Ethiopian was reading “Isaiah the prophet,” the 7 53rd chapter. This chapter is from that section of. the book which the German destructive critics, and their British and American fol lowers, say was:‘hot written by Isaiah, at least' hot 'by thé ,7 original Isaiah^ but by some, other..man—possibly another Isaiah.
LESSON EXPOSITION By J. H.
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