The Bible has promises running all through it and God wants you to appropriate them for your use. They are like a bank note. They are of no value unless used. You might starve to death if you have money in your pockets, but won't use it. So the promises may not do you any good because you will not use them. The Bible is a galaxy of promises like the Milky Way in the heavens.
When you are in trouble, instead of going to your Bible, you let them grow, and they grow faster than Jonah's gourd vine. You're afraid to step out on the promises.
There are many exceedingly great and precious promises in the Bible. Here is one:
"Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son."
If some of you would receive such a promise from John D. Rockefeller or Andrew Carnegie, you'd sit up all night writing out checks to be cashed in the morning. And yet you let the Bible lie on the table.
But the infidel says: "Mr. Sunday, why are there so many intelligent people in the world that don't believe the Bible?"
Do you wonder that it was an infidel who started the question: "Is life worth living?" Do you wonder that it was some fool woman, an infidel woman, that first started the question: "Is marriage a failure?" A fool, infidel woman. Christians do not ask such fool questions. Would you be surprised to be reminded that infidel writers and speakers have always and do always advocate and condone and excuse suicide? Do you know that in infidelity the gospel is suicide? That is their theory and I don't blame them, and the sooner they leave the world the better the world will be.
The great men of the ages are on the side of the Bible. A good many infidels talk as though the great minds of the world were arrayed against Christianity and the Bible. Great statesmen, inventors, painters, poets, artists, musicians, have lifted up their hearts in prayer. Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, was a Christian; Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat, was a Christian; Cyrus McCormick, who first invented the self-binder, was a Christian; Morse, who invented the telegraph, and the first message that ever flashed over the wire was from Deuteronomy—'What hath God wrought'. Edison, although a doubter in some things, said that there was evidence enough in chemistry to prove the existence of a God, if there was no evidence besides that. George Washington was a Christian. Abraham Lincoln was a Christian, and with Bishop Simpson knelt on his knees in the White House, praying God to give victory to the Army of the Blue. John Hay, the brightest Secretary of State that ever managed the affairs of state, in my judgment, was a Christian. William Jennings Bryan, a man as clean as a hound's tooth; Garfield, McKinley, Grover Cleveland, Harrison, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson—all Christians.
The poets drew their inspiration from the Bible. Dante's "Inferno," Milton's "Paradise Lost," two of the greatest works ever written, were inspired by the Word of God. Lord Byron, although a profligate, drew his inspiration from the Word of God. Shakespeare's works abound with quotations from the Bible. John G. Whittier, Longfellow, Michael Angelo, who painted "The Last Judgment," Raphael, who painted the "Madonna of the Chair," Da Vinci, who painted "The Last Supper," all dipped their brushes in the light of heaven and painted for eternity. The great men of the world of all ages, of science, art, or statesmanship, have all believed in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.
Twenty-seven years ago, with the Holy Spirit for my guide, I entered this wonderful temple that we call Christianity. I entered through the portico of Genesis and walked down through the Old Testament's art gallery, where I saw the portraits of Joseph, Jacob, Daniel, Moses, Isaiah, Solomon and David hanging on the wall; I entered the music room of the Psalms and the Spirit of God struck the keyboard of my nature until it seemed to me that every reed and pipe in God's great organ of nature responded to the harp of David, and the charm of King Solomon in his moods.