While reading the hymns of one of the finest of the Christian poets of last century, I was greatly struck by the following verses:
“Some tell me that the Bible
Is not God’s sacred Word,
And brand as cunning fables
The records of the Lord;
That Moses is a fiction,
That prophets never spake,
And e’en the blessed gospels
As myths I must forsake.”
Written, in all probability, three-quarters of a century ago, we cannot but be struck by the fact that the infidel attacks on the Bible—on Moses, the Prophets, and the gospels—of the present day, are clearly nothing new. They must have been then as virulent, if perhaps not quite so intellectual, as they are today. Hence we may see that the Bible has always been an object of attack. Why should this be? Let us read on:
“There was a tame I listened
To those old serpent lies,
My foolish heart sore tempted
The Bible to despise;
Its holiness rebuked me,
Its precepts crossed my will,
I wished to silence conscience,
And thus my lusts fulfill.”
Does this not give us a very true explanation of man’s hatred of the Bible? This writer said that “its precepts crossed my will”; and, in so saying, he states that which every conscience, enlightened by the truth, admits as thoroughly correct. Our “will” is the battle ground; but he continues:
“I cared not for the Saviour,
This present world I loved,
Its lust, and wealth, and glory,
Alone my passions moved;
I eared not for a Heaven,
I hoped there were no Hell,
I wished for no Hereafter,
I loved my sins too well.”
Here was the realm of his “will”; here his desires ran riot. A Savior, a Heaven, had no kind of attraction for him. The present was enough! Military glory (for he was an officer), and the pleasures of a mere animal life—these sufficed. As to the future—ah! he only “hoped there were no Hell,” and doubtless closed his eyes and thoughts to the possibility.
But suppose there should be a Hell, and a Judgment Bar, and God to face?
God—the sadly unknown God—He who loves the poor guilty sinner, spite of all his sins, and who, in deep and measureless mercy, seeks his salvation! This is God! At last he cries:
“His mercy still pursued me,
While wandering far away,
His hand with sickness smote me,
To wound, but not to slay;
His Spirit then convinced me,
And brought my guilt to light,
I saw my lost condition
How awful was the sight!
The Serpent’s crafty teachings,
The heart’s deceitful lies;
The skeptic’s subtle reasonings,
All vanished from my eyes.
Naked, and lost, and guilty,
Beneath God’s searching eye,
Eternity before me,
O! whither could I fly?”
Quite so— “naked, lost, and guilty” —a fact true of each individual from king to pauper, in the entire family of man! When this is known in the conscience, by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit, and when such an one, thus convicted, places himself beneath the eye of God, then whither can he fly! Yes, whither?
“If you would flee from God, flee to Him!” The God of holiness is the God of salvation, and the penitent, who flings himself on this God, is met with a kiss, a robe, a ring, and sandals, together with a feast of perfect satisfaction.
But it is the sense of guilt that is the deathblow to skeptical reasonings about the Bible, reasonings which are but the miserable lies of the heart of man, and the doctrines of the serpent. God and skepticism cannot co-exist.
Well, then, whither did he fly? He fled to God.
“O, then what beauteous sunshine
Burst on my raptured sight,
It chased away the darkness,
And all was life and light.
I saw how grace and glory
In God’s free gospel shone,
Before the Cross my terrors
And unbelief were gone.”
Just so! The cross of Christ is the solution of the stupendous mystery. There the awful guilt of man, in his inborn hatred of God, reached its appalling height. “Sitting down,” after having done all that the most malicious ingenuity and the most inconceivable cruelty could invent, “they watched Him there.” Ponder that statement (Matt. 27:3636And sitting down they watched him there; (Matthew 27:36)). That was man! He could sit down to look and stare on the agony of the blessed “Man of Sorrows.” Then, again, on that cross He was “made sin,” bearing the judgment of God against it; for He suffered not only as a Martyr, but as a willing Victim also He, sinless, and therefore capable of bearing, atoningly, the sins of others He cried out, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”
Who can fully appreciate the meaning of that cry? None but God.
Marvelous cross! Fit meeting-place of all these antagonisms guilt, grace; hatred, love; sin, holiness; iniquity, righteousness; man, God!
“God so loved the world!”
Therefore a true vision of the cross chases all unbelief away. It is the perfect cure of infidelity, and it dissolves every doubt.
There I learn myself in all my fathomless filth and vileness; there I see God in all His illimitable love and grace. There I apprehend atonement, and know that “the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth from all sin.” Glorious solution! “Beauteous sunshine” indeed.
What of the once despised Bible now?
“I love the blessed Bible,
I know it all is true,
It is a faithful mirror,
In which myself I view;
It shows me all my weakness,
My folly, and my shame,
But makes thereby more precious
My Savior’s grace and name.”
More need not be said! The story of such conversions, in poetry or in prose, is ever welcome—conversions which spring from the written Word a God a book once scouted, hated, rejected; but now cherished, loved, and owned. Such is a true conversion to God.
Reader, are you among the Bible-haters (ponder the question), or among the Bible-lovers? The test is most important.