The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1900-06-29

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the Bible las the most power that tn,
family institution is most respected.
Again, agnostics go on still further
and they say the Bible is a mass O.
contradictions, and they put prophet
against prophet, evangelist against
evangelist, apostle against apostle
and they say if this be true, how, then
can that be true? Mr.. Mill, who was
a friend of the Bible, said he had dis
covered 10000 different readings Of
the Scriptures, and yet not one i'm
portant difference-not one important
difference out of 30, ,000-only the diff
ference that you might expect from
the fact that the book came down
from generation to generation and
was copied. by great many hands
And yet I put before you this fact
to-day, that all the Bible writers
agree in the four great doctrines o1
the Bible.
What are those four great doctrines
God-good, kind, patient, just, loving
omnipotent. Mana lost sinner. Two
destinies-one for believers, the other
for unbelievers; all who accept Christ
destroyed who destroy themselves;
only those who turn their back upon
Christ and come to the precipice and
Jump off, for God never pushes a man
off, he jumps off. Now, in these four
great doctrines all the Bible writers
agree. Mozart, Beethoven, Handel
and Hadyn never wrote more har-
monious music than you will find in
this perfect harmony of the Word of
God, the harmony in providence and
in grace.
You must remember also that the
authors of the Bible came from diff
ferent lands, from different ages and
from different centuries. They had
no communication with each other;
they did not have an idea as to what
was the chief design of the Bible, and
yet their writings, got. up from all
these different lands and all these diff
ferent ages and all these different
centuries, coming together make a
perfect harmony in the opinion of the
very best scholars of all lands. Is not
| that a most remarkable fact?
The Bible is made up of the Old
|
Let us take the New Testament first.
Why do I believe it? Why do l take
| it to my heart? It is because it can
be traced back to the Divine heart
| just as easily as that aisle can be
traced to that door, and that aisle to
| that door.
Jerome and Eusebius in the first cen
tury and Origen in the second century
and other writer's in the third and
fourth centuries gave a list of the New
Testament writer's just exactly CORE
spending with our list, showing that
the same New Testament which we
have they had in the fourth century
and the third century and the second
century and the first century. But
where did they get the New Testa-
ment? They got it from Irenaeus.
Where did Irenaeus get it? He got it
from PoIycarp. Where did Polycarp
get it? He got it from St. John, who
was the personal associate of the Lord
Jesus Christ My grandfather gave
book to my father, my father gave it
to me, give it to my child. Is there
any difficulty in tracing this line?
On communion day I will start the
chalice at that end of the aisle, and the
chalice will pass along to the other end
of the aisle VIII it be difficult to trace
the line of that holy chalice? No diff
Guilty at all This one will say: 81 gave
it to that one" and this one will say:
81 gave it to that one" But it will not
be so long a line as this to trace the
SC 10 OF
the fact. But you say: although this
was handed right down in that way,
who knows but they were lying impos-
ters? How can you take their testi-
mony?" They died for the truth of
that Book. Men never die for lie
cheerfully and triumphantly. They
were not lying imposters. They died
in triumph for the truth of that New
Testament.
''Well," says someone, 'now 1 am
ready to believe that the New Testa-
ment is from the heart of Christ, but
how about the Old Testament? Why
do you believe that?" | believe the Old
Testament because the prophecies fore
told events hundreds and thousands of
years ahead-events which afterward
took place. How far can you see ahead?
Two thousand years? Can you see
ahead a hundred years? Can you see
ahead five minutes? No, no! Human
prophecy amounts to nothing. Here
these old prophets stood thousands of
years back, and they foretold events
which came accurately true far on in
the future centuries. Suppose l should
stand here and say to you: Twenty
five hundred and sixty years from now
three miles and a half from the city OF
Moscow, there will be an advent, and il
will be in certain family and it will
be amid certain surroundings" 1t
would make no impression upon you
because you know / cannot foresee
thousand years or one year or one min
ute, and l cannot tell what is going to
transpire in a land far away. But that
is what these old prophets did.
Besides all this, you must remem-
Der that the most of the writer's of
this book were uneducated men. How
can you account for the fact that
when Thomas Darlington Macaulay,
standing in the house of parliament |
in London, wanted to finish off a mag
nificent sentence he quoted from the
fishermen of Galilee, or, sitting in his |
house, wanting to finish one of his |
great paragraphs of history, he quoted |
the words of the fishermen of Galilee? |
Why is it that those uneducated men
have more influence on modern times |
than all the scholars of antiquity? |
Because they were divinely inspired, |
because God stood back of them. |
They were not educated and scholar
ly. 1t was not by force of rhetoric