The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1893-05-12
OVER ALL FOREVER.
DR.. Talmage Talks on the Chief
tainship of Christ.
His Divinity shown by His Words and
Works-If Christ be Not God, Then
are We IdoIaters-The Great
Test Yet to Come.

Test Yet to Come.
The following discourse was delivered
by Rev. T. Dewitt TalmaRe In the
Brooklyn tabernacle from the text:
Christ came, who is over all.-Romans. tx, 5.
For four thousand years the world
had been waiting for a Deliverer--
waiting while empires rose and fell.
Conquerors came and made the world
worse instead of making it better, still
the centuries watched and waited. They
looked for Him on thrones, looked for
Him in palaces, looked for Him in inn
perial robe, looked for Him at the head
of armies. At last they found Him in
a barn. The cattle stood nearer to Him
than the angels, for the former were in
the adjoining stall, while the latter
were in the clouds. A parentage of
peasantry. No room for Him in the inn,
because there was no one to pay
the hotel expenses. Yet the pointing
star and the angelic cantata showed
that Heaven made up in appreciation
of His worth what the world lacked.
Christ came, who is over all, God
blessed forever. Amen"
But whois this Christ who came? AS
TO the difference between different de-
nominations of evangelical Christians l
have no concern. If / could, by the
turning over of my hand, decide wheth-
er all the world shall at last be Baptist,
or Methodist, or Congregational, or
Episcopalian, or Presbyterian, would
not turn my hand. But there are doc
trines which are vital to the soul. If
Christ be not God, we are idolaters.
To this Christological question / de-
vote myself this morning, end pray
God that we may think Alright and do
Alright in regard to question in which
mistake is infinite.
l suppose that the majority of those
here to-day assembled believe the
Bible. 1t requires as much faith to be
an infidel as to be a Christian. 1t is
faith in a different direction. The
Christian has faith in the teachings of
Matthew, Luke, John, Paul, Isaiah,
Moses. The infidel has faith in the
freethinkers. We have faith in one
class of men. Theychave faith in an
other class of men. But as the major
ity of those, perhaps all of those here
assembled, are willing to take the
Bible for a standard in morals and in
faith, make this book my starting
point.
/ suppose you are aware that the two
generals who have marshaled the great
armies against the deity of Jesus
Christ are Strauss and Renan. The
number of their slain will not be
tod hn 0f
angel sounds the roll-call of the resur-
rection. Those men and their sympa-
thizers saw that if they could destroy
the fortress of the miracles they could
destroy Christianity, and they
were right. Surrender the mira
cles and you surrender Chris
tianity. The great German exegete
says that all the miracles were
myths. The great French exegete says
that all the miracles were legends.
They propose to take everything super
ma tural from the life of Christ, and
everything supernatural from the
Bible. They prefer the miracles of hui
man nonsense to the glorious miracles
of Jesus Christ.
They say there was no miraculous
fanciful story, just like the story of
Romulus said to have been born of Rea
Silvia and the god Mars. They say
there was miraculous making of bread,
but that is a corruption of the story
that Elisha gave twenty loaves of
bread to one hundred men. They say
the water was never turned into wine,
but that it is corruption of the story
that the Egyptian plague turned the
water into blood. They say it is no
wonder that Christ sweat great drops
of blood; He had been out in the night
air and was taken suddenly ill. They
say that there were no tongues
of fire on the heads of the
disciples at the Pentecost; that there
was only great thunder storm, and
the air was full of electricity which
snapped and flew all around about the
heads of the disciples. They saw that
Mary and Martha and Christ felt it inn
protant to get up an excitement for the
forwarding of their religion, and so
they dramatized funeral and Lazarus
played the corpse, and Mary and Martha
PLAYED the weepers, and Christ was the
tragedian. put it in my own words,
this is the exact meaning of their state
ments- They say the Bible is a spuri-
Gus book written by superstitious or
lying men, backed up by men who died
for that which they did not believe.
Now, l take back the limited state
ment which L made a few moments
ago, when / said it requires as much
faith to be an infdel as to be Chris
tian, 1t requires thousand fold more
faith to be an infidel than to be a
Christian, for il Christianity demanded
that the whale swallowed Jonah, then
skepticism demand that Jonah swal-
lowed the whale! can prove to you
that Christ was God, not only by the
supernatural appearances on that
Christmas night, but by what inspired
men said of Him, by what He says of
of Himself, and by His wonderful
achievements, Christ came, who is
over all" Ali does not that prove too
much? Not over the Caesars, not over
Frederick, not over Alexander the
Great, not over the Henrys, not over
the Louises? Yes. Pile all the thrones
of all the ages together, and nay text
overspans them as easily as rainbow
overspans a mountain top. Christ
came, who In over ALL" Then He must
be God.
The Bible says that all things were
made by Him. Does not that prove too
much? Could it be that He made the
Mediterranean, that He made the
Black sea, that He made the Atlantic,
the Pacific, that He made Mount Leb-
anon, that He made the Alps, the