Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1919-10-01


Heaven and earth shall pass
away, but my word shall not" is
the scripture passage upon which
Mr. Sunday founded his sermon
last evening, taking as his subject
Nuts for Skeptics to Crack" He
proceeded to how that the bihle
has stood the test OF time. has
come true under the searching test
OF the scientist, tle astronom T,
the statesman and the inhdel wi
all his theories has never been ali
to shake the foundations OF T.
Word OF God. In part he said:
What harm has the gospel {
Jesus ever done the world? Sho
me the nation that has ever crun
bled into oblivion and decay tina
was governed by Christian beliefs.
Show me the woman who ever be-
came a degenerate or outcast who
believed and worshipped God ac-
cording 10 his revelation.
Millions OF people on earth will
arise and testify to the benefits &C
cruing to them because of their be-
lief in Jesus Christ, while equal
millions would crawl from out the
earth and tell you of the blessings
that came to them by believing in
Jesus Christ while they were upon
this old earth.
The burden of proof that the
bible is not the Word of God is on
those who reject it, not upon those
who receive and believe it. And if
the bible is man-made, then men
ought to be willing to put the the
DRY to the test If man made the
bible, he ought to be able to make
as good a one, if not a better one.
AS my friend, Mr.. Bryan, said.
judged by human standards, man
Is better prepared today to write a
better book than the bible, because
the characters in the bible describe
the deeds Of one nation, that of the
Jews, who lived among the hills
and the valleys Of Palestine,
country no larger than the state
of Rhode Island, and they did not
have the printing presses that we
have today and they lacked the
learning; they had no great libra
ries to consult; they had no steam,
no automobiles. no telegraph to
bring the news OF the world and
put it on their breakfast tables for
few pennies. Science had not
yet unlocked natures doors. The
rocks below and the stars above
were all holding their secrets from
No ri fv1d
ply and storehouse they had to
draw on compared with what we
have today, and yet the bible Crap
pies with every problem that con-
fronts the human race from the
creation of the world to our exist
ence here and our life beyond the
tomorrow. And it sets up sign
posts to warn us of dangers if you
refuse the blessings. if you will
yield.
So let the atheists and material
lists and agnostics or any other
kind OF tic" that doesn't believe
it produce a better book, il he can.
You go to all the books from all
the libraries OF all the nations OF
all ages and you Gull out OF all
these books all that's good and no
BILE and pure and inspiring. And
you go and CLEAN from the fields of
geology and botany and astronomy
and science and then embody your
results into one book, and l defy
and challenge you that you cannot
produce a book that would touch
the hem of the garment of the BIZ
BILE, if you took the best out OF ali
the books OF all ages in the world.
So the atheists and agnostics and
the materialists must confess that
they ought to be able to make a
better book, but they have tried
time and again, only to fall back
hopelessly with despair.
Oh, man is growing The mas
terry Of mans mind over the forces
of nature seem almost complete in
our day. For ages the rivers roar
ed and tumbled and plunged and
leaped down the rocky declivities
without contributing much to mans
comfort, today they are computed
as units of power to generate our
and light our streets
and drive our machinery.
And in every line except in char
acter building. the world has grown
better and been made over. Mar
velous the changes from the old
things to the newt And that en-
phasizes that man must be born
again. We see evidences of it on
every hand. Whatever has lifted
mankind can be traced to the bible.
to God and to Jesus Christ, all
through.
Few Study Bible.
A man is a fool today who will
live in sin and live without Jesus
Christ as his Savior and not do
His will.
There are a few people who
make no pretensions of under
standing the bible. Why? For the
simple reason they are too darn
lazy to study it, so far as can fig
ure it out. You can't hope to mas
ter science or mathematics, you
can't master the history of the
world or the literature of the world
without scanning, reviewing, com
pairing, Analysing history from pc
Rod to period. And the contem-
poraneous history of the period you
will study. And il you want to un-
derstand the divine problem as it
unfolds itself from the divine mind,
you have TO study. for God put no
premium on laZiness.
But the vast majority OF man
kind Of all ages OF every phase of
civilization and savagery. from the
refined and brilliant Greek. down
70 the savage North American In