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THE KING’S BUSINESS
I have a friend who has to be away from his office sometimes for several ' days, or weeks even, and when this happens he signs a blank check or two and leaves them with his trusted manager. When the man ager needs money he fills in the amount on the check and takes it over to the bank whose only question is whether the signa ture is genuine. Our Lord was going away for a while, and He left His rep resentatives, the apostles,, a blank check—■? John 14:26; 16:12, 13, which they filled in and gave us the writings of the New Tes tament. So I am satisfied that my Old Testament and my New Testament are all they claim to be for my Lord stands surety for both. II. How to Make It Our Own. Read it. This is what the Ethiopian was doing. The Bible is a big book, but it can be read| through in a year by reading three chapters each week day and five chapters each Sunday. Or read one book at a time. The longest-book in it can be read in about four hours. Romans can be read in ,an hour, Galatians or Ephesians in less than twenty minutes. If any one will devote only fifteen minutes a day to reading the Bible, he can read it through in one year. Read it meditatively. Do not read it as a task to be done as quickly as pos sible, as a child might read so many pages o f history assigned by the teacher as a pun ishment; but réad it as one o f our boys in France reads -that letter from the bne he loves dearer than life itself. Think it over after reading, recall it through the day. Read it prayerfully. “Open Thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out o f Thy law,” Psalm 119:18. Martin Luther said, “ To pray well is the better half of, study.” . Read it practically. Let the purpose of your Bible reading be Bible living. Put into practice what you learn, Remember that every Christian is a walking Bible or a walking libel. The gospel according to you is more read by your associates than is- any o f 1 the other four. The Psalmist
As there is not the slightest clue to who this second man was, they have dubbed the unknown “deutero-Isaiah.” How strange it is,' and what a pity, too, that the Spirit who guided Philip so miracu lously in every other detail o f .the inci dent, did not straighten him out -on the identity o f the writer o f the passage through which the Ethiopian, and count less multitudes o f other sin-burdened men and women since, found the Saviour; As to what our Lord Jesus thought about the Scriptures, see Mark 7 :10-13 where He calls them “ God’s w o r d M a t t . .5:17, 18 where He declares their perma nency; John 10:35, where He declares they “cannot be broken;” John 5:46, 47, where He says Moses wrote o f Him (the destruc tive critics say Moses did not), and declares that if- they --“ believe ■ not his (Moses’ ) writings, how shall ye believe my words?” He endorsed the historical accuracy o f the Scripture accounts of the creation—Matt. 19:4; o f Cain and Abel—Matt. 23 :35; Sodom and Gomorrah—Luke, 17:28-32; Noah and the flood—Matt. 24:37-39; Jonah and Nineveh—Matt. 12 :39-41. He ordered His conduct by the Scriptures—Matt. 8:17; 13:34, 35; He defeated Satan with “it is written”—Matt. 4 :4, 7, 10, using on this occasion a portion o f the Scripture that the destructive critics say were a-part of the forgery o f some pjous( ?) Jew in the days o f Josiah nearly 1000 years after Moses was dead; He was so confident of the accuracy o f its very language that He silenced the SadduCees with the tense o f a verb—Matt. 22 ;29-32; and over and over again He appealed to the Scriptures to sub stantiate His ■ claims — Matt. 22:41-46; 26:24, 31, 54; Luke 24:27, 44. Sometimes a new student o f the Institute comes to me to endorse a check for him as the cashier does not know. him. When I do so, the cashier raises no more ques tions for she can hold me responsible. So our Lord endorses Moses,-David, Isaiah and all the other writers o f “the law, the prophets, and .the psalms,” and I am per fectly satisfied with His endorsement.
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