this conviction, was the fact that books by human authors often contradict each other and in the technical fields are soon superseded by more modem books which often directly contradict earlier accepted facts and tmths. Next, I considered its remarkable preservation. It is the oldest book in the world and most frequently at tacked, yet it has been preserved. There was a time when the Book almost dis appeared from the face of the world; apparently only one copy existed, but God protected that one copy and brought it to light again. Read the sto ry for yourself in II Kings 22! One oth er instance of the Bible’s remarkable preservation may be noted. In 303 A.D. the emperor Diocletian issued the order that all copies of the Bible were to be destroyed. But -— the order failed to accomplish its end. The Bible was not destroyed.! Today the Bible faces the greatest attack of its entire history, an attack by enemies and so-called friends alike, but still it is the world’s best seller. The preservation of the Bi ble may be attributed to one thing only; it is the Word of God. Some of the greatest writings in the world have disappeared under the impartial hand of time and history; the Word of God alone has remained. Fourth, I considered the prophecies of the Book. I found that each one that has been fulfilled has been so in exact accord in every detail as origin ally set forth. These prophecies often were made centuries before the time that they were fulfilled. They were fulfilled by people who in accomplish ing them did not even know that they were fulfilling a prophecy. They were sometimes fulfilled by people who were opposed to God’s plan and who would not have fulfilled it if they had known what they were doing and had been left to their own discretion. The pro phecies themselves were made by peo ple who did not themselves sometimes understand what they were prophesy ing, though some have said that they made astute political guesses because they were students of governmental (continued on next page) 5
truths. Perhaps the writers of the New Testament had misinterpreted the meaning of Christ’s life, and we might be misplacing our faith. Perhaps after all the liberal is right when he de clares that salvation is not through the vicarious atonement of Jesus Christ but rather through the keep ing of the Sermon on the Mount. No! This was not enough. Either the Bible is the Word of God or it is not. Even my own Christian experi ence rested in the balance, and I de clared that if the Bible were not the Word of God, then I would turn my back upon Christianity itself and would “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomor row we die.” To settle this question I turned to the Word of God and for two days gave it my almost undivided attention to answer this most crucial question. As I looked, I saw these things. First, the Bible has within it no real contradictions. Those which my professor had pointed out were seeming contradictions; a careful consideration of them revealed that they were ap parent; they were not real. The ex planations were there if one only took the time to look. Then, I considered the remarkable unity of the Book and its agreement with itself throughout. Here was a Book written over a period of some sixteen hundred years by about thir ty-six to forty different people, written in three different languages, in six dif ferent countries. Few of the writers knew each other. Advances in know ledge were being made constantly. How could the writings of different periods, the productions of Jews and Gentiles, kings and commoners, priests and lay men, prophets and politicians, acade micians and academically untrained, and physicians and publicans be put together in a single volume and have no real contradiction even in science, history and psychology within them? The only answer was that God the Holy Spirit was the Author of this book, and that every word of it was divinely inspired without exception. By way of contrast, and to strengthen
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker