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Luke declares that Lysannius was tetrarch of Abilene; and again the critics denied it and more than ever discounted Luke as an historian.
Renan, the plausible and analytical infidel, read the record carved on the stones of Baalbeck, and announced, openly, that Luke is correct.
From the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, Tyre and Sidon; from the trenches of Tel el Armana; by the key words of the Rosetta stone and the black but speaking face of the Moabite stone; from newly discovered papyri and parchment, and the mystic page of cracked and crumpled palimpsest; from the rocks of earth, the depths of the sea and the heights of heaven – and from the latest discoveries of science, there arise amazing witnesses, which speak in tones that cannot be hushed, with facts that cannot be denied, and bear testimony beyond all possibility of dispute to the truth and accuracy of the book; so much so, indeed, that such an one as Sir John Herschell, the great astronomer, has said: “All human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more and more strongly the truths contained in the Sacred Scriptures.”
Consider the vitality of the book.
In less than ten years a text-book is out of date, a cyclopedia worthless, and a library a cemetery of dead books and dead ideas; but this book keeps living right on – keeps abreast of the times, has a testimony for every day, and every day borrows its youth afresh as from the womb of the morning.
Science has laughed it out of court. Two hundred and fifty years ago Voltaire said: “Fifty years from now the world will hear no more of the Bible.” Self-elected scholarship has pronounced it out of date and dead. Again and again its funeral services are held. Kind and condescending eulogiums are uttered over its past history and its good intent. With considerate hands it is lowered into its grave. The resquiescat in pace is solemnly pronounced and lo! before the critical mourners have returned to their homes it has risen from the dead, passed with surprising speed the funeral coaches, and is found – as of yore – in the busy centres of life, thundering against evil, revealing the secrets of the heart, offering consolation to the sorrowing, hope to the dying, and flashing forth from its quivering, vital pages the wonders of coming glory.
While copies of the classics – Virgil, Zenophon, Cæsar, Sophocles, Pindar and Martial – are to be counted by a few thousands, and are cast aside by students as soon as they have graduated, and are forgotten in a twelvemonth, this Bible goes on printing every year millions of copies in all languages and dialects of earth; so far from casting it aside, when once read, men take it up and read it again and again, study it through life, dig into it as for hid treasure, and make it the pillow on which to lay their dying head.
With each succeeding year the demand for it increases and voices are continually crying – give us The Book.
It is the supreme book.
It is the book we need when the fire of sin gleams in our eye and its poison burns in our veins. It is the book we need when the heart is sore, when our soul is troubled, and when peace is no longer a guest in our home.
It is the book we need; for from its pages alone do we behold the light which shines from a Saviour’s empty grave; from its pages alone do we receive assurance of the resurrection of the dead, of immortality and the life to come; and from its pages alone do we hear the tender and welcoming words which seek to greet us and to comfort us while we struggle here ofttimes beneath the burden’s growing weight, those words of heavenly music: “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.”
What author on earth would think his book dead and out of date if year after year the publication of it taxed the printing presses of the world? What author would deem his book out of date when the voices of everywhere proclaimed it the book of books, and multitudes unnumbered confessed that from its pages alone they found the way of life and peace?
Such a book is neither out of date nor dead; and its throbbing vitality tells of a life impulse and inspiration that are not of man.
And, finally,
This book inspires men for God.
Every year books on morality and essays on conduct are written and published. They get as far as a first edition and are never heard of again; but this book, which binds all its parts about the person, the work, the office and the glories of Christ, changes the life, the character, the time and the eternity of men.
Place this book in the midst of the vilest and most abandoned community of desperate and devilish men and, sooner or later, you will hear a cry coming from the depths of sin and shame, bitter cries of repentance and yearnings after God; and by and by that community will be transformed, men will no longer be demon filled, but possessed with a spirit of truth and love; and God will be found to reign and rule in the midst.
Whatever there is of sweetness and truth and righteousness in the world to-day; whatever there is that gives hope and comfort on earth and holds men back from very madness and despair, is due directly and indirectly to this book.
Take up a map and find the lands where sin and vice skulk in the darkness; where virtue is honored and purity enthroned; go mark on the map the lands where the men are the most manly and the women the most womanly, and you will find it in those lands where the Bible is exalted, not as the word of man, but, in deed and truth, as the Word of God.
Find the men and women who know most of God, who have the deepest consciousness of him in the soul, and who walk every day with the assurance of his real presence– to whom the unseen becomes from hour to hour the thing that is alone real – and who live as kings above their prostrate passions – and they will be those who make this book the supreme authority in their daily lives; who hear it when it speaks to them as the very voice of God.
A book which thus inspires men for God is, indeed, a book which, by every law of logic, must have been inspired by God.
From the evidence cited two things are apparent:
1. The Bible is not such a book as a man would write if he could.
2. The Bible is not such a book as a man could write if he would.
By these conclusions, therefore, the Bible is shown to be not of man.
As the book is thus shown to be not of man – either by inclination or ability; and as from the beginning to the end its object is to glorify the unseen God in the revelation of his incarnate Son, then this book is of God; and being the utterance of his mind and will, is his Word; so that the statement of the apostle concerning it is justified. It is to be received as he says: “Not as the word of man, but as it is in truth, THE WORD OF GOD.”
To him who so approaches it – who puts his shoes from off his feet as on holy ground, and with the silence of expectant faith listens and looks, it will disclose itself, speak to him, and so lay hold of the inner recesses of the heart that he shall know he has been face to face with God, has had glimpses of the delectable mountains and the city foursquare that lies beyond; from henceforth he shall walk, not as one in a vain show or in the mixing of darkness and light, but where the night shineth as the day; where the road is no longer paved with the stumbling stones of doubt, nor the signboards filled with a guess, but where the way leadeth on and up – shining more and more bright unto the perfect day.
Take up this book, O friend. Do not read it with a hurried glance. Let thine eyes rest a while upon some single word, and if thou art patient, it will bud and blossom and bloom and grow unto thee as a tree of life; and the leaves shall be as medicine for the healing of thy hurt. Take it into thy mouth and learn a lesson from the meadow kine who chew the tender grasses, and turn them over, and chew them again, till they have extracted sweetness and life therefrom. Chew the words of this book over and over again (it is impossible to do so with any other book), meditate upon the words (to meditate, to reflect, are highest functions), mediate upon their meaning – upon their direct and cognate meanings; let the thoughts they suggest find full and free reaction in thy soul, and from some simple word or phrase thou shalt draw the sweetness of divine love, and more and more the consciousness that thou hast received into thine innermost being very spirit and very life.
Read it on bended knee. Take up the words and breathe on them with the warm breath of sincere desire to know their intent, and music will come forth as from the fabled horn of old – music that shall have in it all the hallelujahs and hosannas of the heavenly host.
If you will take this book to your heart, you will find it bread such as kings’ ovens never baked, water more crystal than that which bursts from mountain springs, wine the like of which was never pressed from purple grapes, meat which cattle on a thousand hills never furnished, and fruit no man ever gathered in royal gardens – the fruit of the Spirit. You will find it a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path, a hammer for breaking the flinty rocks by the way, a fire that will burn out the stain of sin, and warm benumbed fingers for quickened service in His Name.
Give it the first place in your life. You will want to hear from it as the last thing when you go hence. The words of loved ones will be sweet in your ear as you leave these mortal shores (if our Lord Jesus Christ should not hasten his coming, you must go), but you will want to hear its utterance above all the tones, even of those you love, speaking the final word of hope and cheer to you.
Be very patient with it. It has great things to say to you – and you will not always be fit to hear them. You will not always – at the first – be able to understand them; but if you do not understand to-day, to-morrow, or other morrows after that, it will speak to you and you shall fully know. Perhaps it will wait till the unshed tears are in your heart, and the moan the common ear has never heard – then it will speak – and the words will fall into the sore place of the soul, as though angel lips had touched it; it will wait, perhaps, till the storm is high, and your frail craft (life’s poor, frail craft) is tossed as though it would go down in the whelming waters (and the shore so far away), and then it will speak and say, “Peace – be still,” and in that driven life of yours shall be a great and holy calm.
Do not attempt to cross-question it as though you hesitated to believe all it said. To accept some parts and reject others will be fatal to you. God does not reveal himself to those who doubt him. He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of all them that diligently seek him. So must you approach this book – with reverence and submissive faith; for this book, O friend! is not the word of man, but in very truth – THE WORD OF GOD.