The Penn's Grove record., 1889-04-13
DR.. TALMAGE'S SERMON:
Tough Things In the Bible.

The Bible is the most common. sense
book in all the world. But there are
many things In it which require ex-
PLANTATION. 1t all depends on the mood
in which you come to this grand old
book. You may take hold Of the
handle Of the sword or It's sharp edge.
You may employ on its mysteries the
rule of multiplication or satisfaction.
There are things, as my text suggests,
hard to be understood, but l shall solve
some of them, hoping to leave upon all
honest minded people the impression
that If four or five of them can be ex-
planned, perhaps they may all be ex-
planned.
Hard thing the first. The Bible says
the world was created in six days,
while
GEOLOGY
says 1t was hundreds of thousands of
years in process Of building, sin the
beginning God created the heaven and
the EARTH" ain the beginning" There
you can roll in ten million years II you
want to. There is 10 particular date
given-no contest between science and
revelation. Though the world may
have been in process OF creation for
millions OF years, suddenly and
quickly. and in n week, 1t may have
been fitted up for mans residence
Just as a great mansion may have
been many years in building, and vet
In one week 1t may be curtained and
chandeliered and cushioned and up
holstered for a bride and groom.
You are not compelled to believe
that the world was made in our six
days. 1t may not have been a day of
twenty.four hours, the day spoken of
In the first chapter; 1t may have been
Gods day, and a thousand years with
Him are as one day, "And the even
ing and the morning were the first
day"-God's day. "And the evening
and the morning we're the second day"
Gods day. "And the evening and
the morning were the sixth day"-
Gods day. You and 1 living in
the seventh day, the Sabbath Of the
world, the day of Gospel redemp-
ton, the grandest day of all the week
In which each day may have been made
mp Of thousands of gears.
THE CREATION OF LIGHT.
The Bible represents that light was
created on Monday, and the u was
not created until Thursday. just think
Of It'll a book declaring that light was
created three days before the sun
shonel Why, don't you know that heat
and electricity emit light independent
of the sum- Beside that, when the
earth was in process of condensation,
1t was surrounds by thick vapors and
the discharge of many volcanoes in the
primary period, and all this observation
may have bindered the light of the sun
from falling on the earth until that
Thursday morning. Beside that,
David Brewster and Herschel the as
tronomer, and all the modern men of
their class, agree in the fact that the
sun is not light, that 1t is an opaque
mass, that 1t is only the candle
stick that holds the light, a phos-
phorescent atmosphere floating around
1t, changing and changing, SO it is not
to be at all wondered at. that not until
that Thursday morning its light fell on
the earth. Beside that, the rocks in
specialization emit light. There is
light from a thousand surfaces, the
alkalies, for instance. The metallic
bases emit light. There was a time In
the history of the world when there
were thousands of miles of liquid gran
tie flaming with light. Beside that, 1t
has been found that there are burned
out volcanoes in other worlds which,
when they were in explosion and activ-
ity, must have cast forth IN insuffer-
able light, throwing a glare all e our
earth. Beside that, there are the Au-
rora Borealis and the Aurora Anchalis.
Another hard thing:
THE STORY OF THE DELUaE
and Noah's ark. They say that from
the account there it must have rained
eight hundred feet of water each day
in order that 1t might be fifteen cubits
above the hills. They say that the ark
could not have been large enough to
contain 1.-TWO of every Sort" for there
would have been hundreds of thousands
and hundreds of thousands of creatures.
They say that these creatures would
have come from all lands and all zones.
They say there was only one small
window IN the ark, and that would not
have given fresh air 10 keep the ami
mails inside the ark from suffocatlon.
They say that the ark finally landed on a
mountain seventeen thousand feet high.
They say they do not believe the story.
Neither do /. There is nc such story
in the Bible. / will tell you what the
Bible story is. l must say that ] have
changed my mind In regard to some
matters which once were to me very
mysterious. They are no more mystic
ri0us. This is
THE KEY TO THE FACTS.
This is the story OF an eyewitness,
Noah, his story incorporated afterward
by Moses in the account. Noah des
cribed the scene just as 1T appeared to
him. He saw the food and he fathom-
ed its depth. AS far as eye could
reach everything was covered up, from
horizon to horizon, or, as it says under
the whole heaven" He did not refer
to the Sierra Nevadas, or to Mount
Washington, for America had not been
discovered; or, if it had been d scOver-
ed, he could not have seen so far oil.
He is giving the testimony OF an eye
witness. God speaks after the manner
of men when he says everything went
under, and Noah speaks after the man
ner of men when he says everything
did go under. An eyewitness. There
is no need of thinking that the kanga-
roo leaped the ocean or that the polar
bear came down from the ice.
Why did the deluge Gomez 1t came
for the purpose of destroying the out
rageous inhabitants of the then thinly-
populated earth, nearly all the popula-
ton, probably, very near the ark
before it was launched. What would
have been the use OF submerging
North and South America, or Europe, or
Africa, when they were not lnhabitedr
And as to the sceptical suggestion that
In order to have the water as deep as
the Bible states. it must have rained
eight hundred feet every day, | reply,
the Bible distinctively declares that
the most of the food rose instead of
falling. Before the account where
it says ''the windows OF heaven were
opened, it says, ''all the fountains OF
the great deep were broken up" All
the biologists agree in saying that
there are caverns in the earth filled
-..l.I F.-th a-A