1 Peter 1:25. No doubt there are some
readers of the “Christian Herald[1]” in our
audience this evening, and I am sure you have noticed how Dr. Graham[2] in the
answers to various questions always appeals to the Bible, as the final court of
appeal, and it was also very evident in all his ministry. And each week since
his questions commenced I have looked expectantly for a question upon the
ground of his faith upon in the Divine origin of the Bible. Now we are
living in a day of increased education, and the average man and woman is very
reluctant about accepting anything without a reasonable ground for doing so,
and I consider that is a perfectly commonsense attitude to take and it throws a
burden of responsibility upon the Christian worker and especially upon those
who occupy our Christian pulpits that we should all be “ready to give a reason
of the hope that is in us[3].. with
meekness and reverence. And of course the Bible alone is the ground of that
hope. Now how do we know the Bible is reliable? There are many answers that can
be given to this question, and I propose this evening to pass on an answer that
has strengthened my own faith more than any other, and I trust it will have the
same effects in the lives of all present. It is what we may call the harmony of
Scripture. Altogether about 40 persons, in all stations of life are engaged in
writing the book, and the work was spread over a period of about 1600 years.
Moses began amid the fund is assigning I and John finished (who was once called
“a son of thunder”) on the Isle of Patmos[4]. Many of
the writers had no knowledge whatever of what others had written, but they
verified them, or explain them, fulfilled them, and we’ll all used by the
divine author to make up one glorious whole. Now there is one principle which
runs throughout the book which cannot be explained except by attributing the
work to one author, and that author God, who alone lived throughout the entire
1600 years. And I would like to call your attention to a verse in Romans 9. 12.
It was said unto her (Rebecca). The elder shall serve the younger. And we will
come back to Rebecca after first of all mentioning Seth, the son of Adam. After
the murder of Abel by Cain, Seth was raised up after judgment was pronounced
upon Cain the murderer and Cain passes out of the picture, and the descendents
of Seth alone are thereafter mentioned[5]. So we
see the younger is given the precedent over the elder. Now we pass on to Jacob
and Esau, and here we find the enemy seeks to force the purpose of God. First
of all he brings Esau in special favouritism with his father by his skill in
hunting and his father’s love of venison[6]. But
this was defeated by God who overthrows and even uses the sin of Rebecca and
Jacob to fulfill his purpose[7]. And the
elder is brought into the place of servitude to the younger. Again Satan
working through Esau seeks to defeat their purpose by his earnest plea. Hast
thou not reserved a blessing for me?[8] In the
epistle of Hebrews we read of this event in very graphic language please turn
to chapter 12. 17 and there we see, Esau spoken of as a profane person who sold
his birthright for a morsel of meat. And you know how that afterwards when he
would have inherited the blessing.. he was rejected, for he found no place of
repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. After much careful
thought I have accepted the interpretation of this, that the word repentance is
used in this place as it is used in Numbers 23. 19. God is not a man that he
should repent or change His mind, and what Esau sought was a change of mind in
Isaac. The word had been spoken and was not altered. And the result was the
elder served the younger, according to the purpose of God. Now let us pass on
to Genesis 48. Here we find Jacob upon his death-bed, blessing the two sons of
Joseph and placing his hand upon the head of the younger son Ephraim, and
Joseph trying to remove it and place it upon the head of the elder but Jacob
refused and said “I know it my son I know it, he shall be great but his younger
brother shall be greater than he. Here we have a repetition of the foregoing
incident and Ephraim is set before Manasseh and the explanation to it all is
given in Romans 9. Now let us turn over to 1 Samuel 16 and then we have Samuel
being sent to anoint a new king over Israel.. and it is from among the sons of
Jesse and seven sons are brought before Samuel and neither of these are God’s
chosen ones. And Samuel says “Are here all thy children?” And Jesse says there
remaineth yet the youngest. And David is brought, and we know how that
eventually, he the younger becomes greater than his brethren, and they like
elder ones serve the younger as their King. Now let us pass on to the New
Testament, and there in Luke 15, we have the story of the younger son becoming
a prodigal, and leaving his old home and going into a far country and
disgracing his father’s name, but ultimately we find him returned and
reinstalled in the father’s home and presents while the elder son is angry, and
would not go in. And all these instances reveal the truth of God’s purposes,
that the elder shall serve the younger, and finally we have the revelation
showing the church in the premier place in the new heaven, while Israel the
elder is peopling the new earth[9]. All
these pages unite to show us that God is the author of the book from Gen to
Rev, and it is one perfect whole. Now let us ask ourselves the question. How
does this affect me? If I am saved by grace, I can rejoice in all the promises
of the book for they will most surely come to pass, and if I am not saved than
I should tremble at His word for all the declarations of coming judgment will
most surely be carried out in God’s own time and way. And this is the word
which by the gospel is preached unto you. The word of the Lord that liveth and
abide it forever[10].
Let us all believe it.
[1] “Christian Herald began life over 130 years ago in Glasgow when it was founded by Anglican minister and evangelist Rev. Michael Baxter in July 1874 as a means of reporting the events surrounding the Moody and Sankey missions. The Christian Herald started out as The Signs of Our Times and its peak circulation was 250,000 copies a week around 1900, making it the largest-selling religious periodical in the world” http://www.christiantoday.com/article/christian.herald.to.cease.publishing.in.the.new.year/4798.htm. It ceased publication in 2006.
[2] That is of course Billy Graham who conducted his famous crusades earlier in the year in London
[3] 1 Peter 3:15
[4] This would appear to
be based on Collett, Sidney. (2013). pp. 6-7. The Scripture of Truth Its
Origin, Its Languages, Its Translations. London: Forgotten Books. (Original
work published pre-1945, year unknown)
“Altogether
about forty persons, in all stations of life, were engaged in the writing of
these oracles, the work of which was spread over a period of about 1,600 years
" viz. from about 1500 B.C., when Mo.ses commenced to write the Pentateuch
amid the thunders of Sinai, to about A.D. 97, when the apostle John, himself a
son of thunder (Mark iii. 17), wrote his gospel in Asia Minor.” In the preface
Collett writes “I HAVE SO often been asked to put in print the substance of an
address on the Bible, which I delivered in the year 1904, on what was known as
" Bible Sunday," that, having felt led to comply with that request, I
have amplified and arranged the matter in the form in which this book is now
presented. In doing so my object has been to prepare in a simple, concise, and
readable form such a book on the Bible as I should have liked to possess twenty
five years ago, when, as a young Christian, I was not only puzzled by some of
the questions dealt with in the following pages, but was also entirely at a
loss to know how I could obtain the desired help and information thereon."
http://www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/The_Scripture_of_Truth_Its_Origin_Its_Languages_Its_Translations_1000606722/17 Collett appears to have been a Baptist minister whose nephew was one of the survivors of the Titanic!
[5] Genesis 4:25
[6] Genesis 27
[7] That is in being deceptive
[8] Genesis 27:36
[9] see Revelation 21 but this is a very particular interpretation of this passage whose source is unclear to me
[10] His text 1 Peter 1:25