Dr. Talmage tells the story that one day while he was bothering his theological professor with questions about the mysteries of the Bible, the latter turned on him and said: “Mr. Talmage, you will have to let God know some things you don’t.”
A man once said to an infidel: “The mysteries of the Bible don’t bother me. I read the Bible as I eat fish. When I am eating fish and come across a bone. I don’t try to swallow it, I lay it aside. And when I am reading the Bible and come across something I can’t understand, I say, ‘There is a bone,’ and I pass it by. But I don’t throw the fish away because of the bones in it; and I don’t throw my Bible away because of a few passages I can’t explain.”
Pascal said, “Human knowledge must be understood in order to be loved; but Divine knowledge must be loved to be understood.” That marks the point of failure of most critics of the Bible. They do not make their brain the servant of their heart.
CAVILLERS.
Did you ever notice that the things that men cavil most about are the very things to which Christ has set His seal? Men say, “You don’t believe in the story of Noah and the flood, do you?” Well, if I give it up, I must give up the Gospel, I must give up the teachings of Jesus Christ. Christ believed in the story of Noah, and connected that with His return to earth. “As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” Men say, “You don’t believe in the story of Lot and Sodom, do you?” Just as much as I believe the teachings of Jesus Christ. “As it was in the days of Lot . . . . . even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.” Men say, “You don’t believe in the story of Lot’s wife, do you?” Christ believed it. “Remember Lot’s wife.” “You don’t believe the story of Israel looking to a brass serpent for deliverance, do you?” Christ believed it and connected it with His own cross. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosever believeth in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” Men say, “You don’t believe the children of Israel were fed with manna in the desert, do you?” “Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; . . . Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.” Men say, “You don’t believe they drank water that came out of a rock?” Christ believed it and taught it. Men say, “You don’t believe in the story of Elijah being fed by the widow, do you?” Certainly. Christ said there were many widows in the days of Elijah, but Elijah was fed by only one widow. Christ referred to it Himself, He set His seal to it. The Son of God believed it, and, “shall the servant be above his master?”
JONAH AND THE WHALE.
Men say, “Well, you don’t believe in the story of Jonah and the whale, do you?” I want to tell you I do believe it. A few years ago there was a man whom some one thought a little unsound, and they didn’t want him to speak on the Northfield platform. I said, “I will soon find out whether or not he is sound.” I asked him, “Do you believe the whale swallowed Jonah?” “Yes,” he said, “I do.” I said “All right, then I want you to come and speak.” He came and gave a lecture on Jonah. In Matthew they twice asked Jesus for a sign, and He said the only sign this generation shall have shall be the sign of Jonah in the whale’s belly. He connected that with His resurrection, and I honestly believe that if we overthrow the one, we must overthrow the other. As you get along in life and have perhaps as many friends on the other side of the river as you have on this side, you will get about as much comfort out of the story of the resurrection as any other story in the Bible. Christ had no doubt about the story. He said His resurrection would be a sign like that given unto the Ninevites. It was the resurrected man Jonah who walked through the streets of Nineveh. It must be supposed that the men of Nineveh had heard of Jonah being thrown overboard and swallowed by a great fish. I think it is a master-stroke of Satan to make us doubt the resurrection. But these modern philosophers have made a discovery. They say a whale’s throat is no larger than a man’s fist, and it is a physical impossibility for a whale to swallow a man. The book of Jonah says that God prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. Couldn’t God make a fish large enough to swallow Jonah? If God could create a world, I think He could create a fish large enough to swallow a million men. As the old woman said, “Could He not, if He chose, prepare a man that could swallow a whale?” A couple of these modern philosophers were going to Europe some time ago, and a Scotch friend of mine was on board who knew his Bible pretty well. They got to talking about the Bible, and one of them said: “I am a scientific man, and I have made some investigation of that Book, and I have taken up some of the statements in it, and I have examined them, and I pronounce them untrue. There is a statement in the Bible that Balaam’s ass spoke. I have taken pains to examine the mouth of an ass and it is so formed that it could not speak.” My friend stood it as long as he could and then said, “Eh, mon, you make the ass and I will make him speak.” The idea that God could not speak through the mouth of an ass!
CLIPPING THE BIBLE.
There is another class. It is quite fashionable for people to say, “Yes, I believe the Bible, but not the supernatural. I believe everything that corresponds with this reason of mine.” They go on reading the Bible with a pen-knife, cutting out this and that. Now, if I have a right to cut out a certain portion of the Bible, I don’t know why one of my friends has not a right to cut out another, and another friend to cut out another part, and so on. You would have a queer kind of Bible if everybody cut out what he wanted to. Every adulterer would cut out everything about adultery; every liar would cut out everything about lying; every drunkard would be cutting out what he didn’t like. Once, a gentleman took his Bible around to his minister’s and said, “That is your Bible.” “Why do you call it my Bible?” said the minister. “Well,” replied the gentleman, “I have been sitting under your preaching for five years, and when you said that a thing in the Bible was not authentic, I cut it out.” He had about a third of the Bible cut out; all of Job, all of Ecclesiastes and Revelation, and a good deal besides. The minister wanted him to leave the Bible with him; he didn’t want the rest of his congregation to see it. But the man said, “Oh, no! I have the covers left, and I will hold on to them.” And off he went holding on to the covers. If you believed what some men preach, you would have nothing but the covers left in a few months. I have often said that if I am going to throw away the Bible, I will throw it all into the fire at once. There is no need of waiting five years to do what you can do as well at once. I have yet to find a man who begins to pick at the Bible that does not pick it all to pieces in a little while. A minister whom I met awhile ago said to me, “Moody, I have given up preaching except out of the four Gospels. I have given up all the Epistles, and all the Old Testament; and I do not know why I cannot go to the fountain head and preach as Paul did. I believe the Gospels are all there is that is authentic.” It was not long before he gave up the four Gospels, and finally gave up the ministry. He gave up the Bible, and God gave him up.
A prophet who had been sent to a city to warn the wicked, was commanded not to eat meat within its walls. He was afterwards deceived into doing so by an old prophet, who told him that an angel had come to him and said he might return and eat with him. That prophet was destroyed by a lion for his disobedience. If an angel should come and tell a different story from that in the Book, don’t believe it. I am tired and sick of people following men. It is written, “though an angel from heaven preach any other gospel, let him be accursed.” Do you think with more light before us than the prophet had that we can disobey God’s Word with impunity?