THE BIBLE

In the last chapter we learned that the first obligation of religion was to pray, or worship God. The second obligation and duty of the young Christian is to lovingly read and study THE BIBLE. I want to say some things to you about the Bible in this chapter, which I trust will help you to appreciate and love it.

I. Let me speak of its names. It is called "The Bible," "The Scriptures," "The Word of God," "The Sacred Writings," "The Law and the Prophets," and "The Old and New Testaments."

1 "The Bible" means "the Book." As if, of all the millions of books in the world, this was the most important and the best.

2. "The Scriptures" means the writings that are most important and that excel all others. Jesus said, "Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they that testify of me" (John 5:39).

3. It is called "The Word of God," because he gave the Book to men as a revelation of his will. 'Men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Pet. I:21). "Every Scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness." Thus these writings are really the Word of God.

4. It is called "THE SACRED WRITINGS" because they declare the truth, and convince of sin, and reveal God, and confute errors, and give us the way of salvation, and reform the life, and teach us the way to heaven as no other writings do in all the world.

5. It is called "The Law and the Prophets" because the Old Testament contains the moral laws of God and the various prophecies and teachings concerning the people and kingdom of God. "We have found him of whom Moses in the law and prophets did write" (John 1:45).

6. It is called the Old and New Testaments because the Bible is divided into these two parts. Testament means a will or covenant. The Old Testament contains the story of God's dealing with men concerning salvation before Christ came. The New Testament tells the story of Jesus

Christ and the way of salvation through faith in a resurrected and living Savior. Such are the reasons for the various names of the Bible.

II. Let me say a word about how the Bible was given to us. We should know that the Bible did not come directly from the hands of God as we have it now, -- all in one large volume. Neither was it written by the hand of God and then put into the hands of men. But it was a growth through a long period of time, -- some fifteen hundred years or more.

We may illustrate it by the story of a castle in England, called "Warwick Castle." It was not built at one time, by one architect, and in one uniform style of architecture. It is the disjointed work of some five centuries with every variety of architecture. The outside of the building is an immense pile of great diversity of form and style. But within, the apartments, though each is finished in the style appropriate to its own period, are nicely adjusted to each other, so as to form clusters of rooms perfectly harmonious, and make the whole edifice a convenient and delightful residence, The very names of some of the architects have been forgotten and lost, but the beauty and perfection of their work remains to bless the dwellers under its roof.

That is the way with the Bible, It contains history, laws, prayers, songs of praise, glowing prophecies, tender encouragements, and solemn warnings. It is prose and poetry in every form and style of composition. Moses began the Book, using material which he found at hand, and after him some thirty or more writers -- we know not just how many nor who they all were -- wrote through more than a thousand years, and then the Old Testament was completed as we now have it. Then there was a space of some centuries, at the end of which Jesus came. During the first century after the birth of Christ the New Testament was written by at least eight different writers, and our Bible was complete. You see, "The Scriptures were given to men gradually, throughout many ages, as God saw the right opportunities, at sundry times and in divers manners" (Heb. 1:1).

Yet the Bible is one book, as Warwick Castle is one, only its unity is not external; "but it is internal, a spiritual unity, the unity of one grand idea running through the whole, the idea of reuniting the human soul to God," of bringing back this lost race to the Heavenly Father, from whom it has been so sadly separated by sin.

God so put his Spirit into the minds of the various writers that they were inspired to convey religious truth to men, such as men needed to know and God wished to teach. So the Bible, though written by many men, gives the mind and will of God. The Divine Mind so illuminated and inspired and exalted the minds of the writers that they made the wise choice of facts to report, and their utterances for the time became the expression of the thought and will of God -- his message of religious truth to men.

The historians and poets and prophets wrote from time to time through the centuries, as God needed to use them and occasion demanded. But inasmuch as God used the writers as accountable men and not as passive creatures, there is a moral and religious progress in the Bible, which reaches perfection only in the New Testament after Christ came, and the revelation of God to man was made complete.

The first book of the Bible is called Genesis, which means the beginnings. It gives the history of the creation of the world and of men, and the destruction of the race by the flood because of its incurable sin. Then we have the beautiful story of Abraham, called by God, through whose descendants God was to give the Bible and the Savior to the world. Exodus means the journey out, and tells us of the journey of the children of Israel out of Egypt. Leviticus gives the directions to the tribe of Levi about the worship of God. Numbers tells about the numbering of the tribes, and so on. It has been generally believed for ages that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, and after him wrote Joshua, and Samuel, and Nehemiah, and Ezra, and others, completing the Bible history. Then we have the poets -- David, and Solomon, and others; and after them the prophets, who, one after another along the centuries, received messages of warning and encouragement and hope from God, which they wrote out and gave to men. These together make up the Old Testament, which Jesus studied and quoted from, and held as sacred, and commended to the world.

After Jesus had died and risen and ascended, the early Christians went everywhere, telling the story of Jesus' life and death, what he said, and what he did. This was their kind of preaching. God finally put it into the hearts of four men to write out the story of Christ's life and death, to meet four great needs of the world.

1.Matthew. -- This was written by Matthew, the publican, one of the twelve disciples, to the Jews of Palestine, to convince them that Jesus was indeed the promised Messiah, the fulfillment of all prophecies, and that his crucifixion was the great sacrifice of which all the sacrifices in the Jewish ceremonies were only a type. It is the Gospel of the Kingdom, and shows the spiritual relation of Christianity to the Old Testament system of religion by arguments which at that time only Jews could appreciate. He keeps saying, "That it might be fulfilled, which was written." He wrote his epistle first in the Hebrew language from seven to ten years. after Christ's death; and then, as the Jews began to use the Greek language more entirely, Matthew translated his Gospel into the Greek language about 'twenty-five years later.

2. Mark. -- This Gospel was written by Mark; not one of the apostles, but the son of a pious woman in Jerusalem and the intimate friend of the apostle Peter. He was Peter's amanuensis, or clerk, and this is Peter's story of Jesus. This Gospel was written for the Roman converts from Paganism and their companions. They were a people of power -- the rulers of the world. This epistle was written to show these Romans that Jesus was a being of power, worthy of their respect and reverence, and even worship. Mark scarcely refers to the Old Testament, for he was writing to those who had not read it. He describes the miracles and deeds of Jesus as the Wonder-worker, the Mighty One, greater than all the Cæsars -- the Son of God. He wrote, some years after Matthew, a shorter story, greatly condensing the sermons and conversations of Jesus.

3. Luke -- The third Gospel was written by Luke, who also was not one of the twelve. He was a Greek physician, and, according to ancient testimony, was born in Antioch. He became a zealous Christian, and made himself familiarly acquainted, by personal investigation, with all the facts about the Gospel story. Luke was the companion of Paul. Irenæus says, "Luke, the companion of Paul, committed to writing the Gospel as preached by him." As Matthew wrote to the Jews and Mark to the Romans, so Luke wrote to the Greeks, to hold up to them Jesus as the perfect man, the friend of sinners, the sympathizing Savior, the great Physician who can heal the bodies and souls of a sin-sick humanity. He dwelt especially upon the parables. He wrote about the same time as Mark.

4. John. -- This Gospel was written by John, the beloved apostle. It was written to all, of every age and clime, to hold up Jesus as the Divine 'Savior, the glorious, only begotten Son of God, "manifest in the flesh," who came "that we might have life." "I give unto them eternal life." He dwells upon the Divine nature of Jesus, and presents the Divine side of the gospel as it deals with eternal destiny. It is the most spiritual of all the Gospels or of the entire Bible, and was written toward the close of the first century when the apostle was nearly one hundred years old. It was "written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, believing, ye might have life through his name" (John 20:31). Then Luke wrote also the hook of Acts. Paul wrote thirteen or fourteen epistles. James and Jude, the Lord's brothers, and Peter and John, the disciples, wrote the rest of the Bible. And so the Bible, as we now have it, was completed.

III. Let me tell you why you should both read the Bible, and study it, and love it. I might first urge you to read it because God gave it to you, and you ought to read it out of respect and reverence for him. You should also read it because it reveals God and the only way of salvation. And, further, you should read it with the greatest care because it has been the one book that has overturned idolatry and savagery and heathenism, and given to the world Christian civilization. And still more, this book purifies communities, blesses families, and saves the individual from the curse of sin, and gives the joys of religion and the hopes of heaven. It is the one book whose influence takes sin out of our hearts and prepares us for eternity. Such a book ought to be prized above all others and read daily.

I now want to tell you what other and very great men have thought of the Bible.

MARTIN LUTHER, the great reformer, said, "It is the only book to which all the hooks in the world are but waste paper.."

LORD BACON, the greatest universal philosopher of the world, wrote: "O God, thy creatures have been my books, but thy Scriptures much more."

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, the sixth President of the United States, said: "For many years it has been my custom to read four or five chapters every morning. In what light soever we regard the Bible, whether with reference to revelation, to history, or to morality, it is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue."

When ANDREW JACKSON lay dying, he pointed to the Bible, and said, "That book, sir, is the rock on which our Republic rests."

GENERAL GRANT, when President of the United States, wrote to the Sabbath-schools of America: "Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor of your liberties, write its precepts in your hearts, and practice them in your lives. To the influence of this book are we indebted for all the progress made in true civilization, and to it we must look for our guide in the future."

DANIEL WEBSTER, probably our greatest American statesman, wrote to the Earl of Shaftesbury, who had given him a Bible: "You could have given me nothing more acceptable. The older I grow, and the more I read the Holy Scriptures, the more reverence I have for them, and the more convinced I am that they are not only the best guide for the conduct of this life, but the foundation of all our hope respecting a future state of existence."

SIR WILLIAM JONES, the great scholar who spoke twenty-eight languages, wrote: "I am of the opinion that the Bible contains more exquisite beauty, more pure morality, more important history, and finer strains of poetry and eloquence than can be collected from all other books, in whatever age or language they may be written."

EWALD, the foremost of modern critics, said to Dean Stanley of the New Testament, as he stooped to pick it up: "In this book is all the wisdom of the world."

SIR ISAAC NEWTON, the great philosopher, said, "We account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy."

JOHN MILTON, the great poet and statesman, wrote: "There are no songs comparable to the songs of Zion, no orations equal to those of the prophets, and no politics like those which the Scriptures teach."

C. A. FARRAR writes: "Its words speak to the ea and heart as no other music will, even after wild and sinful lives; for in the Holy Scriptures you find the secrets of eternal life, and they are they that testify of Jesus Christ."

CHARLES DICKENS, the great 'novelist, gave a New Testament to his son Edward as he was starting for Australia, and wrote: "I put a New Testament among your books because it is the best book that ever was or ever will be known in the world, and because it teaches you the best lessons by which any human creature can be guided."

CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW, the great lawyer and railroad president, said in a speech before the Nineteenth Century Club, of New York: "There is no liberty that lasts in the world, and there is no government which has liberty in it that lasts, that does not recognize the Bible. I say now that the Christian faith of my mother is good enough for me."

An African prince visited QUEEN VICTORIA, and asked her to tell him briefly the source of England's greatness. She pointed to a Bible, and said, "That is the source of England's greatness."

GLADSTONE calls the Book "the impregnable Rock of Scripture." .

"Bring me the Book, sir," said SIR WALTER SCOTT, the great author, to Lockhart, as he lay on his deathbed. "What book?" asked Lockhart. "'The Book, the Bible," said Sir Walter. "There is only one Book."

Dear children, read the Bible, and love it. It is lighted all through with the glory of God, its Divine Author. It is so superior to all other books, that it may well be called "The Only Book." May it guide you to Jesus and make you wise unto salvation.

QUESTIONS

1. What is the second duty of the Christian?
2. What are some of the different names of the Bible?
3. Was the Bible written all at once?
4. Whose book is it?
5. Do the greatest of men esteem the Bible above all other books?
6. Why should you read and study it daily?

Sing: "Hallelujah! What a Savior!" and "O Happy Day!"