The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-07-06

Babylon and you will not find a leaf or
a grass blade Of those splendid hanging
gardens, and in the summer time the
ground actually blisters the feet of the
traveller. Babylon destroyed according
to the prophecy.
Where is Tyre? In the day of its
pomp the prophet said. The fishermen
will dry their nets where this city
stands" If you should go to that
place today, you would find that liter
ally. The fishermen are drying their
nets on the rocks where the city OF
Tyre once stood. Tartar and Turk and
Saracen drying their nets on the rocks.
Go up Chatham street, New York,
and find the fulfillment of a prophecy
made thousands of years ago. Why Is
it the Israelite is always distinguish
able, whether you see him in New
York or Picking or Vienna of Stock
holm or London or Paris? The English
man goes to America and after a while
he loses his nationality. The Norwe-
gian his, the Russian his, the Italian
his, the Spaniard his, the IsraeEte new
er. Why I? Because this book pro-
vided thousands of years ago that the
lands and that they should be kept
seperate, seperate until the Lord took
them back to Jerusalem. And yet who
persecute the Israelites had better look
out They are Gods people, and ac-
cording to the prophecy made thou
sands of years g they are distin-
guishable, they are kept seperate until
h Lord takes them 10 their native
land.
How could those old prophets faretell
that? How could they know that thou
sands OF years ago? What is mere hu-
man skill? Could you have seen so
far ahead? Could you have predicted
anything like it? Those old prophets
stood looking down in the great future
and said a Messiah would be born in a
certain nation, in a certain tribe in a
certain family, in a certain place at a
certain time thousands of years ahead.
Ages rolled on, ages on ages, and after
a while Christ, the only one who has
been called Messiah by any great num-
Der of people-Christ was born, in that
very nation predicted, in that very
tribe, in that very family, in that very
place, at that very time. Could human
skill have predicted it? Does not that
prove bepond all ~controversion and be-
yond all doubt that those prophets
were inspired of the Lord Almighty.
looking down in the future and seeing
thousands of years ahead occurrences
to take place, just as plainly as I see
your faces this morning.
TRUTH OF THE BIBLE.
WELL" says some one. .'now T am
ready to take the New Testament as
from the heart of Christ. and 7 am
ready to believe the prophecies. The
evidence is beyond all dispute. But
you u remembeN' says my friend.
that the prophecies are only a small
part OF the old book. You don't expect
us 10 believe all the old book If YOU
round one of your good, honest letters
IN any envelope with 10 or 20 cruel. w.
ing, filthy letter, how long would YOU
allow that honest letter to stay there?
In a half minute you would either
snatch it out of the envelope. Now.
do you suppose the Lord God would
allow these pur prophecies, these
prophecies which you admit must have
come from the hand of God, from di-
vine inSpiratiOn-do you % God
would allow these pure prophecies to
be bound up and put in the same en-
velope with the book of Job, and the
book of Psalms, and the book of Deu-
teronomy, and the other books, if those
books were not good books?
Besides all this, you must remember
that the most of the writers of this
book were uneducated men. How
can o account for the fact that when
Thomas Darlington Maccauley, stand
ing in the house of parliament in Lon
don, wanted to finish off a magnificent
sentence he quoted from the fishermen
of Galilee, or, sitting in his house,
wanting to finish one of his great par
agraphs of history, he quoted the
words of the fishermen of Galilee?
Why is it that those u~neducated men
have more influences on modern times
than all the scholars of antiquity? Be
cause they We're divinely inspired. be-
cause God stood back of them. They
were not educated and scholarly. 1t
was not by force of hetor that they
triumphed, but today hos humble
fishermen, o uneducated fishermen,
WELD more influence in all our modern
cities than any 25 men living in this
generation and day. They must have
been inspired. There must have been
a divine influence behind them, and
before them, and above them, and
within them.
Besides that, you must remember
that this book has been under fire fol
centuries, and after all the lombard
ment of the skepticS. of all the centur-
les, they have no knocked out of this
Bible a piece as large as the small enc
of a sharp needle. Oh, how the old
book sticks together. UnSanctified
biologists try to pull away the book
of Genesis. They say they do not be-
lieve it; it annot be there was light
before the sun Shone; it cannot be all
this story about Adam and Eve; and
they pull at the book of Genesis, and
they have been pulling a great while,
yet where is the book of Genesis?