Calvary Baptist Church

Calvary Baptist Church, Grenada, MS, USA

Holding to the truths embraced by Baptist for centuries.

If you would read philosophy, where will you find a book giving a more perfect philosophy of life? Where will you find moral precepts more perfect than those of Solomon and Jesus? Can you find anywhere a more perfect epitome of man's duty to man and to God than in the Ten Commandments? Can you find in any other literature a precept to equal the golden rule? Where will you find loftier spiritual sentiments than in the teachings of Jesus? Yea, after nearly twenty centuries of upward climbing, with the Bible as a text and the Holy Spirit as instructor, humanity has not yet reached the middle tableland, halfway toward the summit of the moral and spiritual teachings of the Sermon on the Mount.

Then considered as a mere book, there is no book in all human literature to be compared with the Bible, some books are great in one line of thought, but the Bible surpasses in all.

The religious books of the Buddhists represent the greatest intellectual and spiritual effort of the ancient civilization of southern Asia. But how far from perfect is the religion of Buddha? There is no God to love, no higher power to whom the soul may pray. At the open grave it tells the broken-hearted mother that her child may soon become a cat or cow, and to the weeping wife it says the departed husband may become her horse.

The books and doctrines of Confucius are the best that thirty or forty centuries of Chinese civilization could produce. But Confucianism can hardly be called a religion. There is no worship, save that of ancestors; no God, no future world, no hope; yet the unaided human intellect can do but little more.

Mohammedanism presents the Koran, which no doubt represents the best intellectual effort of man at creating a religion. But we cannot say that man was entirely independent of the Bible, even in this, for Mahomet was perhaps a descendant of Abraham and incorporated in the Koran some of the Bible teachings. In fact, about all that is good in the Koran is from the Bible; but how much of silly errors there are in it would require a book to tell.

Egypt left stone monuments for all the years to come, but could produce only a foolish idolatry for religion—worshiping cattle, stones and the River Nile.

Greece gave the world the greatest literature, and for simple intellectual effort has never been surpassed, if equaled, yet she could not invent a perfect religion. Even her gods were voluptuous and no better than her men. But that is the best the unaided human intellect could do.

Rome gave the world a code of laws and one of its most potent languages, but she could not evolve a perfect religion. You could give a Roman no greater insult than to tell him he was like his god.

In modern times skeptical philosophers have tried to create a good religion different from that of the Bible, but all have tried in vain. It cannot be done. The Bible is the only book that contains a perfect religion or even a perfect man.

Where in history, song or story will you find a perfect hero? Great soldiers have led their hosts, but they have waded to glory through blood. Great kings and statesmen have wielded the scepter of power, but their lives are stained with sin. Great teachers and preachers have wrought reformations, but their lives are full of errors, and crooked paths are behind them. Poets have sung of the glories of their favorites, but at the same time have lamented their shortcomings. Novelists have exhausted fertile imaginations to create a perfect hero, yet all their heroes sin. But where is the man in ancient or modern times that can find a fault in Jesus?

Go to the wilds of the American forest, hold up Jesus to the untutored Indian savage, and instinctively his heart cries out: "The Perfect Man!" Go to the yellow man of China or Japan, hold up Jesus to him, and, although of a different race from himself, his heart cleaves to Jesus as the perfect man, and he 'says: "I love Him." Go to the jungles of Africa; hold Jesus up before the Hottentots, and beneath his thick black skin his poor heart throbs as he finds in Him perfection. The Malay, of still a different race, can love and serve Him; the white man of all degrees, in every land, in all the ages, can join in the universal verdict of all the races: "I find no fault in Him."

Do you tell me Jesus never lived; then I answer that man did not create the story of Jesus, for he has proved himself unable to imagine perfection. But no fact in history is better established than that Jesus lived. Then I say He is divine, for it is impossible for a man to live better than he can imagine.

God has placed in every human heart a longing for the infinite, a soul-thirst and hunger that the world cannot satisfy, and that none of the religions of human origin can satisfy; but the religion of Jesus as revealed in the Bible fills to the fullest every heart it enters. There is no hungry heart that is not satisfied with the Bread of Life. No soul thirsts for righteousness that is not satisfied with a draft from the spiritual Rock of Ages. There are none so poor that may not have an inheritance incorruptible and surpassing understanding; nor anyone so rich that he may not need the exceeding riches of grace that are freely offered all who believe on Him. There are none so low that Jesus cannot lift them up, and none so high as to be above His power of helping. The long arms of Jesus can reach down and "rescue the lowest criminal, and His blood can wash white the foulest stain. His love rebukes the haughty man and lifts the humble heart. No shadow is so dark that His love will not brighten, no life so dreary He cannot cheer, no heart so wrung with anguish that He may not comfort. The wise and the ignorant, the lowly and the proud, the sinner and the saint, the rich and the poor, the living and the dying, all alike turn their eyes upon Jesus and are satisfied. No other book or source offers a religion that reaches all climes, races and classes; that satisfies under all conditions; that reaches the loftiest heights and the lowest depths of the needs, conditions and desires of the human soul. Since man has so signally failed in all his efforts to create such a religion, he did not create this, nor invent the book that makes us wise concerning it.

The Bible is the only book that gives an original account of God and His love. Reason may prove His existence, but the Bible must reveal His character. Reason tells us every effect must have a cause. Yonder are effects of intelligence greater than man’s; and the Bible tells us that that intelligence is a living God. One of the properties of matter is inertia. Matter cannot move itself. Yet all matter is in motion. Mind alone can originate motion. It can move matter. The mind of man can move his hand, or his body; but these without the inner man are lifeless clay. This mind may set machines in motion and cause matter to assume various forms and positions, but yonder, see the grass growing, the birds singing, the trees climbing upward. Who caused this motion of matter? You answer: "The showers, the winds, the chemical elements, the warm sunshine." But what caused, the winds to blow, the rain to fall, the chemical elements to move, the sun to shine? Heat is but a form of motion. Matter was originally still. What mighty hand moved original chaos and flung the worlds into space at a fearful velocity? Whose terrible breath fanned the sun to a furnace and blew the comets blazing through space? When I look around me or turn my eyes into the heavens I see motion. The earth turns upon its axis, and wings its way around its endless orbit. The sun with its revolving worlds goes through space at an unthinkable speed, around an unspeakably distant center. Mind has produced this motion. The mind of man has not—could not have done it; then instinctively I cry out: "The mind behind all, that works through all and in all is God; there can be no other." And yonder, somewhere in space around which the heavens revolve, is His throne. Yes, reason teaches me that God is, but the Bible tells me that some day I shall step into His glorious presence. "With mine eyes I shall see God." "The small and the great shall stand before Him."

Reason teaches man that the soul is immortal, but it does not—cannot—teach him where nor how he shall spend eternity. God has created no true appetite nor longing without the corresponding thing which satisfies. He did not give the cattle appetite until He grew the grass to feed them; He did not give them thirst until the water flowed to quench it. So He did not plant in human hearts that intense and worldwide longing for another life until the gates of Paradise stood ajar to receive them.

Design is seen everywhere. Everything in nature has some purpose. Nothing is made in vain. The oceans roll their wide expanse of waters to warm the winds and laden them with moisture. But this would amount to little upon the great continents did not the mountains lift their lofty heads to cool and condense them. The rivers roll their waters to the seas, the forests lift their boughs, the sun shines, and the breezes blow for some purpose. These are all parts of one great design.

A design presupposes a designer. A great plan with a great designer presupposes a great end. Great architects do not make great plans for toy houses. I carry you to a large city. We go to a magnificent building of marble and granite, costing $15,000,000. I tell you this was made for a stable. But you say: "No, that is impossible; men do not spend $15,000,000 in erecting such buildings as this for horses. It was designed for something more noble," Then I tell you it was built for the meeting place of the lawmakers of the greatest nation on earth, and you are satisfied. Then I carry you out and show you the mountains, the rivers, the trees, the flowers, the stars and the heavens, and tell you that these were designed for the birds, or beasts, and you say: "No; impossible; you must find some end more noble." Then I show you the coal beds, the iron deposits, the gold mines, the beasts of the fields, the hills and the skies, and show you that the great index finger of all nature points to man as the object and end of all of God's designs, and reason is satisfied.

But wait; all nature seems happy, all but man. Everything in its natural element is contented. The fish in the water are satisfied. When the bird unmolested builds her nest among the trees she sings all the day. When the pastures are green and the cool brook flows near, the cattle are contented. But let conditions change. Remove any of these from their natural elements and they are unhappy. Now this is the state in which we find man. Of all God's creatures he alone is never perfectly satisfied, never completely happy. All nature was made for him and yet he does not fit anywhere. He is out of harmony, out of tune with all of his surroundings everywhere. Then, if the world was made for man (and none can doubt it) and he does not fit it, and this life ends all, what a stupendous failure God has made in all his work, for he fails totally who fails in the end! It is irrational and unthinkable to state that He, who has so perfectly planned man and the universe, should make such a stupendous failure in the end. God has not failed, and this life does not end all. "Man shall live again."

Thus reason teaches us that the soul is immortal, but the Bible tells us where we shall spend eternity and how heaven may be gained. "Search the Scriptures for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and these are they which testify of me."

Reason may teach us that there is, or ought to be, a place of punishment for the wicked, and it shows that it must be eternal. Justice demands an evening up which we do not see in this life. "Whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap." Since justice is not done in this world, it must be done in the next. If there is punishment in the next world it is reasonable that it should continue forever. The State, when it hangs a man, inflicts eternal punishment, and we say it is right:

Violate nature's laws, and you suffer forever. The innocent babe puts out its eyes, and they never return. Nature inflicts eternal punishment, therefore it is natural.

Again it is well known that as the sinner gets older his heart gets harder. Few are converted after they are thirty years old, fewer still after fifty, only the rarest number after seventy, and perhaps none after one hundred. If a man surrounded by praying parents and friends, by the influence of the good, appealed to by gospel invitations, wooed by the Holy Spirit and drawn by the love of God, will not choose Hfe, but continue to harden his heart,' how long must he live and how hard must his heart become before he will ever turn? How long must he live in hell, separated from mother's prayers, beyond the sound jf gospel appeals, away from the Holy Spirit, without one good influence to give a good impulse; but the companion of murderers, and liars, and thieves, and whoremongers, and devils; surrounded by every evil the imps of the infernal region can invent; drifting further from God, further from good, further from heaven; getting harder of heart and deeper in sin; how long must he live, how deep in sin, how hard in heart must he become before he will eventually turn to God and live? Punishment is and must be eternal. But the Bible is the only book that tells how we may please God and live.

History tells us Jesus lived and did miracles such as were never wrought by man. It tells us He was wickedly crucified, but it remains for the Bible to tell us whence He came, why He lived and why He died. The Bible alone tells us: "By His stripes we are healed."

No wonder Heine, the infidel German philosopher, exclaimed, after spending a day in reading the Bible: "What a book! broad as the universe, deep as human experience, rooted in the abyss of creation and towering up above the blue secrets of heaven! Sunrise and sunset, promise and fulfillment—its destruction would be the ruin of human happiness, its extinction would be the epitaph of history!"

When Columbus finally touched the mainland of South America at the mouth of the Orinoco river, they tasted the water and found it fresh. A sailor said: "We have found another island." "No," said Columbus, lifting his eyes over the river many miles wide; "no river like this flows from an island. This river drains a mighty continent." And so when I read the Bible and feel its mighty current flow upon me, when I compare it with the books that men have written, I am made to exclaim: "If the Bible is not from God, no book is, and He has left humanity to grope in the dark alone, with no guide, no light and no hope."

But the Bible is from God. This fact is clearly proved, first from prophecy. Man cannot know the future. He may, with some degree of success, forecast events in nature, but he cannot foretell events in human history. No one can say: "I know I will not die tomorrow." No one can say: "I know Chicago will burn next May." The curtain is closed on the future and man cannot see behind it. He cannot see one inch beyond his eyes. Yet we find events foretold with startling accuracy in the Bible. A large part of the Bible is prophetic. It predicts leading facts concerning nations, peoples and cities; not in vague, doubtful, general terms, but with wonderful particularity and definiteness, hundreds, even thousands of years before they occur. All the grand outlines of human history were written in the Bible more than two thousand years ago. Yet these prophecies are so accurate that they read like history instead of prophecy. Did we not know better we would say they were written after the events occurred.

Read Isaiah's prophecy concerning Babylon: "Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation; neither shall the Arabian pitch his tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there, and the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces; and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.''—Is. 13:19-22.

Strange, terrible! How could a man look upon that great city of a million inhabitants, fifteen miles square, surrounded by walls three hundred feet high and ninety feet thick, prosperous beyond all in the world at that time, and say it should be destroyed and never be rebuilt; that it should be a waste place? How unlike any human probability! But let the centuries roll by* Go today to the river Euphrates, go far down the river and upon its banks a guide points to- some desolate ruins. "There," he says, "is Babylon." You see no dwellings, no cattle, no sheep, no Arab's tents—only a desolate, lonesome waste. But look, what is that coming out of the old cellars and caverns? Owls, bats, reptiles and doleful creatures, for God said, 2700 years ago, that these should be the only inhabitants.

Some years ago an American investigator went to search the ruins. He employed an Arab chief and band to excavate for him. They contracted for one month, but as the first evening drew on the Arabs became restless, and before the sun went down they were packed for leaving. They could not be induced to spend the night within the limits of old Babylon. "Why?" They could not tell, but you will find the answer in the Bible: "Neither shall the Arabian pitch his tent there." Who but God lifted the curtain and let Isaiah see the future?

Read the prophecy of Ezekiel concerning Tyre, the great commercial city of the Mediterranean Sea. Once her streets were crowded with people from all lands, now she lies in ruins. Nearly six hundred years fore Christ, Ezekiel predicted with minute exactness its coming desolation:

"Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I am against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up. And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers; I will also scrape her dust from her and make her like the top of a rock. It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea; I have spoken it, saith the Lord God; and it shall become the spoil of nations . . . . I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. . . . He shall slay with the sword thy daughters in the field; and he shall make a fort against thee, and cast a mount against thee. . . . They shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses; and they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water. . . . And I will make thee like the top of a rock; thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more; for I the Lord have spoken it, saith the Lord God."—Ezekiel 26: 3-14.

Years pass and we lift our eyes and see a great dust rising from the eastern desert. It is Nebuchadnezzar coming with his hosts to destroy Tyrus. For thirteen years his armies besiege it, but at last it is captured and "made as the top of a rock." The inhabitants removed to that part of the city which is built upon an island. But she was not to be secure, for hear Zechariah say:

"And Tyrus did build herself a strong hold, and heaped up silver as the dust, and fine gold as the mire of the streets. Behold, the Lord will cast her out, and He will smite her power in the sea; and she shall be devoured with fire."—Zech. 9:3,4.

She was to be the "spoil of nations," so God brought Alexander, who took the ruins of the city on the mainland and cast her into the sea to build a causeway to the island city to destroy it and "burn it with fire."

Today the traveler sailing along the coast of the Mediterranean sees ruins on the coast. "What is that?" he asks of a sailor. "The ruins of Tyre," is the reply. "What is that white I see?" asks the traveler. "Only the nets of fishermen spread out. to dry," is the answer. How could men have so accurately foretold these things if God had not drawn the curtain ? The Bible is the only book that contains narratives like this.

But hear God say: "I will make of Abraham a great nation. His seed shall be as numberless as the sand; he shall bless all nations." Today count his posterity, if you can, or measure the good, if possible, that his seed have brought to the world. God said they should be carried into bondage beyond the Euphrates, if they should forsake His laws. They forsook His laws, and now listen as you hear their sad lament:

Now hear a prophecy concerning Egypt and Noph, a central province of Egypt afterwards called Memphis: "Thus saith the Lord God: 'I will also destroy the idols and I will cause their images to cease out of Noph, and there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt.'"

'' This prophecy was spoken five hundred and seventy-two years before the birth of Christ. It contains two distinct predictions—the destruction of idolatry in Noph, and the utter cessation of the Egyptian monarchy. What two events .more unlikely could have been predicted? Of all the countries in the world, Egypt seemed to be the most polluted with idolatry. The people worshipped almost everything. They are said to have had thirty thousand different gods. But God said: 'I will destroy the idols, and cause their images to cease from Noph.'

"Idolatry continued in Egypt for a thousand years after this prophecy was uttered, but it has since been destroyed by Mohammed and his followers. Though Mohammed was a false prophet, yet he taught one great truth—that there is but one God and that idolatry is sin. And when he had acquired sufficient power to propagate his religion by the sword he swept idolatry out of Noph as with the besom of destruction.

"'But what if this prophecy had been uttered concerning Rome? It would not be true of Rome, for images are worshipped there today. Images are now worshipped in most of the countries of Europe, Asia, and America. But they have ceased from Noph, as God said they should.

"But the other part of this prophecy is wonderful. 'There shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt.' Wonderful declaration, indeed, and one that could not wait a thousand years for fulfillment. ' There shall be no more'—not even one more—prince of the land of Egypt. It must have a speedy and perpetual fulfillment. Yet what was more unlikely? Shall not one of Egypt's native princes ever again sit upon her throne? No more a prince of the land of Egypt. Had not her monarchs reigned in long succession? Had not one dynasty succeeded another in a long catalogue of illustrious names? Had not her rulers reared some of the most enduring monuments of human glory—the pyramids, which would challenge or baffle the skill of the best engineers of the present day to equal? And do you tell me there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt? 'No more a prince of the land of Egypt.' And what has been her history since? Thus for twenty-four centuries this prophecy has been fulfilled. Can you tell me another land in all the world that has had such a history that not one of its native princes has ruled the country in over two thousand years? How came these prophets to predict these events with such perfect exactness unless they were taught of God?"

Listen to Jesus as He foretells, in the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, the destruction of Jerusalem, and then in seventy years see the Roman armies surround it and put 1,000,000 Jews to the sword. Hear Amos say : "I will sift the house of Israel among all nations." And who can say that the sifting process has not been going on for the past one thousand years? Hear the prophet say: "He shall be a hiss and a by-word among nations," and then hear your neighbor say that another is as "stingy as a Jew." Read the book of Daniel. Read the prophecies concerning the great kingdoms of earth and then turn to your ancient history to find these prophecies fulfilled to the letter. Read his prophecy concerning the kingdom of heaven, its rise as a "stone cut out without hands," its growth, its 1260 years in the wilderness, its crumbling of other kingdoms; and then turn to the New Testament, and to subsequent Church history to find the story true. Read his dreadful description of the great dragon, and then find it singularly fulfilled in the Romish Church. Read the hundreds of prophecies concerning Christ and find them all strangely fulfilled in Him. Read the thousands of prophecies from Genesis to Revelation; how nations should rise and fall, how cities should flourish and fade, how people should live and die, how calamities should befall, dire events happen and great occasions come. Read two thousand years of history written two thousand years before it comes to pass, and tell me not that man wrote it.

Again, the divine origin of the Bible is clearly proved by its wonderful plan and unity. The architects and builders of the past twenty-five hundred years have spoken in unbounded terms of praise of the master mind that so planned and directed the erection of Solomon's temple that the timbers hewed in the mountains and the stone shaped in the quarries were fashioned so perfectly as to go to place "without sound of hammer, ax or tool of iron." Suppose you were to go to the forests of Canada and find men shaping timbers. You ask them what they are doing and they answer: "Hewing timber for some unknown purpose." Then go to the marble and granite quarries of New Hampshire and Vermont, and there find men hewing stone according to mysterious marks and directions. Go to Mexico and find men polishing the wonderful onyx; go to Italy and find them polishing the beautiful Parian marble; go to the iron foundries and steel shops and find men there shaping peculiar forms of steel and iron; then see the great trains and ships bringing these timbers, stone and steel into one spot, and watch them as they take their places in a stupendous structure of wondrous beauty. Then if I tell you that all this happened by chance, that no master mind planned it, I insult your intelligence.

But I will show you a more wonderful thing. Yonder in the distant ages, when the human race was young and had not yet become skilled in the modern arts and sciences, are builders at work. In different lands; in Egypt, in the desolate wilderness of Paran, in Judea, beside the rivers of Babylon, in Greece, in Rome, upon the lonely Patmos, the hewers work and the separate stones are formed. And what a contrast in the character of the workmen, and under what various conditions they labor! A mighty leader and lawgiver writes upon a mountain; a poor old prophet in his tent; a king arrayed in purple, upon an ivory throne, writes in Jerusalem; a servant at the court in Shushan; a captive wailing in captivity, his tears mingling with the waters of Babylon; a fisherman, a lawyer, a taxgatherer, an exile on a lonely island; a prisoner in a dismal dungeon—these all, nearly fifty in number, labored upon unknown plans, in different languages, unknown to each other, separated by hundred? of miles and a thousand years, preparing sixty-six books of different styles and character, but when brought together they form one beautiful and perfect whole; not one book too much, not one book too few, not one statement out of harmony; but all forming the faultless Bible. Who can say this happened by chance ? Where is the human mind that could have planned it or have managed the execution of the plans ? How could these plans have been known to the writers and yet unknown to the world, or how could the authors have written their parts without plan or direction? The Bible did not come by chance. It was planned, but no human mind planned it; therefore it is from God. Any other conclusion is impossible.

Then what shall we say of the history of the Bible? Has any other book ever undergone such long continued, bitter and persistent persecution and not gone down into oblivion? Emperors have ordered its destruction, mighty bonfires have been kindled with its leaves, and those who read it have been killed, but still the Bible lives. It has been ridiculed, scoffed at, bitterly denounced and mercilessly criticized, but still it maintains its hold on the hearts of men. It has undergone various translations by friend and foe, but its crystal truths sparkle still. The tooth of time slowly but surely devours the interest men have in other books. Where are the crowds .that once gathered to hear Homer sing? or Vergil? Where are the crowds that gathered night after night to see Shakespeare played? Where are the millions that went wild over Uncle Tom's Cabin, or other works of fiction, poetry or prose? Scattered are they now in groups of one and two; but the Bible loses none of its charm from the passing years. Man has been able to create nothing that can defy time and resist its decaying influences. The Bible does this, and therefore it is not of men.

What one phonograph records another may reproduce, so what one mind expresses another may understand. What one man writes another may comprehend. No human mind has so far surpassed all others that the world cannot think his thoughts after him, and how much more impossible that more than forty such should live and write one book! Where is the book that man has written that the world has not understood? But where is the man that can truly say: "I have mastered the Bible"? It requires only a few months, or years at most, for a man of ordinary intelligence to completely master any book of science, history, mathematics or literature; but how many years must a Gladstone, a Spurgeon, an Eaton, or a Moody study the Bible to learn all the truths in it? The flippant boy, who knows nothing of it, may say there is nothing in it; the blatant skeptic, who never reads it, may ridicule it and say it is the work of fanatics, but the master minds of earth, after fifty years of patient, prayerful study, find no fault in it; but love it more and more, and say the more they read it the more they realize they cannot fathom its depths, nor climb its heights. What man writes, man can understand. Man cannot fully understand the Bible, therefore man did not write it.

It is possible to establish truth by evidence. When a certain amount of the right kind of evidence is produced, the mind cannot resist the conviction of truth. In establishing truth before a jury, the character, ability and number of witnesses must be considered.

Perhaps the two most celebrated writers on evidence are Greenlief and Storkie. They are recognized authorities in any court. They say a good witness must have a good character, should have no motive for giving false evidence, must have ability to comprehend the facts in the case, and a reputation for carefu1 observation and accurate expression. One such witness will cause belief, and in the absence of strong opposing evidence will establish the fact. The corroborating testimony of several such cannot be overthrown.

The Bible claims to be the word of God. Its writers claim to have been moved by His inspiring power. The religion of the Bible purports to be from heaven, and Jesus is asserted to be the Son of God. To establish any one of these claims is to establish the Bible. Fortunately they are susceptible of proof by legal testimony. In this connection we will establish but one, the claims of Jesus. There are many ways of proving that Jesus is divine, but let us introduce a few witnesses. He claimed to be divine and all of His life and work is based upon that hypothesis. If He did the wonderful things recorded of Him, He was more than human, which is to say divine. Did the blind see at His touch, did the deaf hear at His word and the lame walk at His command? Did the dead hear His voice, and the wind and waves obey Him? Did He die for His enemies, and rise again and go to heaven? If so, He was God. But many witnesses testify that these things were done, and no contemporaneous writer denies it. The disciples bore the most positive testimony to their knowledge of these facts. They bore united testimony and proved their sincerity with their blood and lives. That they were good men their enemies have not doubted; that they were intelligent, even brainy men, cannot be questioned. All admit that they had ample opportunity to inform themselves, and since they could have had no motive for misrepresentation, they have all the qualifications of perfect witnesses and their evidence cannot be impeached and must stand before any tribunal. Let eleven good, honest, intelligent men testify even to death that they saw and heard certain things, and can any man doubt it, especially when there is no evidence to the contrary? Would you risk your life with any two of these witnesses testifying that they saw you commit murder, if you have no direct evidence in your favor? But to the evidence of the eleven add that of all the other friends of Jesus, the Roman historians, Josephus, and other writers of the time, which, together with the fact that no writer of that date contradicts them, establishes the word and works of Jesus as but few things can be established by testimony.

But put the witnesses upon the stand and let them speak. Call His enemies, if they know any evil in Him they will tell it. Let the Pharisees speak. They professed great righteousness and a keen perception of evil. They hated Him and will tell all the evil they know. Hear them: "This man receiveth sinners"! Does not your heart rejoice? Then He receives us.

Put Pilate on the stand. Pilate, you sat in judgment upon Jesus; you heard the evidence; you condemned Him to death. Now, in the light of the evidence, give the world your verdict. Hear him, all ye who would condemn the Son of God, as he says: "I find no fault in Him."

Let the thieves speak. Perhaps among the criminal classes they have heard something against Him. But they say: "This man hath done nothing amiss."

Put the centurion who crucified Him upon the stand and hear him say: "Truly this was the Son of God."

Judas, we know that there is nothing of a public nature against Jesus, but you know His secret life. You were with Him as a friend day and night. You are condemned for betraying Him, now justify yourself before the world by exposing Him. But Judas says: "I have betrayed innocent blood."

Imps of the infernal region, you know what man cannot know. You are enemies of Jesus. You have destroyed all of His influence you could. What have you to say against Jesus to justify your course? Hear them cry out: "Jesus, thou Son of the Most High God."

Now, since no enemy can give evidence against Jesus, let his friends testify, that we know assuredly who He was.

Matthew, Mark and Luke, what do you say of Him ? And with one accord they say He was the Son of God. Thomas, you were not so credulous as the other disciples. You required full evidence, and I rejoice that you did. Now, after feeling the nail prints in His hands and thrusting your hand into His side, what do you say ? Thomas embraces the Master and says: "My Lord and my God." Peter, you once denied Him; now, after His resurrection, and after you have had time to reflect, what do you say of Jesus? Hear him before a mighty multitude: "God hath raised up Jesus and made Him both Lord and Christ."

John, the beloved, you got a little closer to Jesus than the other disciples. You understood, perhaps better than any other, His inner life. The heavens opened for you. You heard the music of Paradise and the voices of the saints and the angels. You saw what has been, what now is and what is to be. Was Jesus known in heaven? Is there any record of Him there? And John, fresh from the courts of glory, answers: "I saw Him as a lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. I saw Him sitting at the right hand of the Father, clothed with honor and power."

Angels, ye ministering spirits of glory, is Jesus known to you? Hear them on that memorable night, as their white wings cleaved the sky, and their heavenly voices sang: "Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. Glory to God in the highest, and on the earth peace, good-will toward men."

Omnipotent Jehovah, Jesus claimed to be thy Son. Speak that the inhabitants of the earth may know, is Jesus known to Thee? Hear His voice as it thunders from heaven on two occasions: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

Jesus promised to be with His believers unto the end. He promised to give them peace, joy and the Holy Spirit. Is He true? Is He able to keep His word? Have His promises been fulfilled? Let His sainted followers answer. Hear Paul and Silas sing in the prison at midnight. Receive the blood sealed testimony of one hundred million martyrs. Hear the shout of a billion new-born souls. Go ask mother, whose face is wreathed with the joys of a thousand blessings from trusting Jesus, and then never doubt His power again. Aye, go gather the witnesses together. Bring the prophets, the saints and the martyrs ; gather the saints on the earth, and those who have died in the Lord. Let them gather by hundreds, by thousands, by millions and billions, until no eye can see the outer limits; then let the angels and the elders join in the mighty shout of testimony before the throne: "Halleluiah, glory and honor and power be unto God and the Lamb forever and ever, amen."

Then surely, if it is possible to establish anything by testimony, we have established the fact that Jesus is the Son of God, and that He is a true witness. He testified to the truth and authority of the Old Testament. He also sent Paul to preach to the Gentiles and inspired him to write the epistles. In these he says: "All scripture is given by the inspiration of God." Thus we establish the divine origin of the Bible by testimony.

We might show that the Bible is no ordinary book by briefly mentioning a few things it has done for the world. "By their fruits shall ye know them." As an advancing summer moves steadily and resistless northward over the seas and over the continents, causing the flowers to bloom where the snows had lain, causing the birds to sing where the winds had moaned, causing the leaves to wave where the ice had hung; so has it been with the influence of the Bible. Through the ages, as the knowledge of this old book has slowly spread among the nations, it has caused hope to spring up where despair had been, love to take the place of hatred, and life to become lord of death. Liberty has followed in its wake; fetters fall from the wrists, and shackles from the ankles wherever this old book is preached. It has reached down a strong arm to woman and lifted her up from man's footstool and placed her by his side. It has dispelled the dark clouds of ignorance and caused the light of civilization to beam upon mankind. Wherever the Bible is read it makes men better, wiser and happier. It gives a new meaning to life that makes it worth living. It lifts humanity from barbarism to enlightenment, from paganism to Christianity, from death in sin to life in Christ. No other book has ever moved the world as this book. The influence for good of all other books together are not to be compared with that of the Bible.

Sometimes as we read the destructive criticism of the higher critics, we tremble from fear that they will destroy the dear old book. A traveler once said: "I was crossing the Rocky mountains, and as I approached the base of a mountain one day I saw a man with a long lever under the rocky foot-ledge. 'What are you doing there?' I asked. 'O, I am trying to turn this mountain over,' said he. I could not help saying in an undertone: 'You are surely the biggest fool in all the world.' But on the following day as I descended the mountain on the other side, I saw a man with his shoulder against a rock jutting out from the side of the mountain. He was sweating freely and greatly excited. 'Come and help me, please' said he; 'help me hold this mountain, for a man on the other side has a pole against it and I am afraid he will turn it over.' Then I said, 'He is a bigger fool than the other.'" Yonder in Chicago and elsewhere are critics and infidels with their levers against the Bible. They may praise and criticize, but they will never overturn nor destroy man's faith in it. The guns of infidelity in all the ages have been turned upon this our rock and fortress, but not one stone is gone nor one bright mark effaced. The waves of life's ocean, lashed to fury by all the powers of darkness, have beat for thousands of years against the base of this our lighthouse, but their billows have thundered in vain. The light still throws its beams as far, and lights the way as brightly as before; and makes a rainbow of hope to dance in the spray of the angry waves.

Let the criticism come! It only serves to reveal the strength of our strong tower. Let the waves roll on; they only wash away the dust of superstition that has accumulated in the passing years; and then, as the rain upon the sands reveals the shining gold, so these waves of criticism and persecution make the gems of God's truth to blaze the brighter. This is God's book. His power is behind it, and how futile must be the efforts of him who would destroy it. Let Satan blow his hardest blasts and fire his heaviest guns; let infidelity and higher criticism raise their fiercest gales and in their fury rage around our fort; I love to feel its strength and know the eternal Rock of Ages is under my feet.

More than a hundred years ago Voltaire, the great French infidel, said: "I will go through the forest of scriptures and gird every tree, and in one hundred years it will be an unread book." But the hundred years have passed, and the very house where Voltaire sat when he made the statement is now a Bible house, and the press that printed his words now prints the Bible that he said would not be read.

George Eliot, the great novelist, said of a certain book that had just come from the press: "In fifty years that book will have destroyed the Bible." The fifty years have passed and that book is forgotten— all except George Eliot's remark—but the Bible still lives.

Some years ago Bob Ingersoll said of a certain book he wrote: "In twenty years this will crumble the creeds, and men's faith in the Scriptures, and the Bible will be read no more." But the twenty years are gone, and Ingersoll is gone and almost forgotten, but the old book lives, and has a stronger hold upon the hearts of men than ever before.

More Bibles were printed and sold last year than in any other year in the world's history. It has been printed in four hundred languages and carried into every land. In the past ten years more than one hundred million Bibles have been sold—more than of one hundred of the most popular novels. The Bible is the most popular book in the world today, and gets a deeper hold upon man with each succeeding year.

"The Bible dying out," did you say? Did you ever stop to think what would have to occur before the Bible might be said to have entirely died out? Go gather all the Bibles that have been printed. Gather them from city and farm. Go to the polar regions; pick up those that have dropped from the benumbed fingers of the Esquimo; go to the deserts of Africa and pick up those that have fallen from the perishing fingers of the Hottentot as he fell upon the burning sands; gather them from all lands and all climes, bring them by car loads and ship loads; pile them in one mighty pyramid; let fire consume them in a great volcano of flame, and let their black smoke settle as a pall over the world, but you have not destroyed the Bible.

Go gather the millions of commentaries, sermons and religious books inspired by the Bible; gather the daily papers, for it is said the Bible could be reproduced from these; gather all the good literature that has been written in the past two thousand years, for this owes much to the Bible, Shakespeare's work alone containing five hundred quotations from the Scriptures; gather the infidel books, for they contain quotations of Scripture; strip your libraries of every book dear to your heart; pile all these upon the great pyramid of flame, and let their smoke add to the pall and darkness over the world; but still the Bible lives.

Destroy your schools and Christian institutions; dynamite your orphans' homes and asylums for the poor, sick and insane; tear from the statute books every law based upon the ten commandments, and roll the world and civilization back to the days of Xero, but 3rou have not destroyed the Bible.

Yonder upon the hills and valleys are church spires pointing heavenward. These must be destroyed. The hymns of Zion must be sung no more, and the lullaby song that mother sang must be forgotten. All Christians must die and generations must pass until their influence in heredity fades out; even the stones that mark their last resting place, containing comforting passages from God's word, must be destroyed and their dust given to the winds, and still upon the other side "the books will be opened" and the Bible will live. Yea, you may destroy the earth, destroy heaven, destroy the saints and angels, but until you break God's scepter and drag Him from His throne the Bible will live, for He has said: "Heaven and earth may pass away, but My word shall not pass away."

This is the book that God has given us to be a "lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path." It teaches us how to live and tells us how to die. It comforts our hearts in the valley here, and gives us glorious prospects in the sky. Then, may our hearts not gladly join the Psalmist as he sings: