The Photo-Drama of Creation, which is being exhibited throughout the United States, is awakening new interest in the Bible. Many who have seen the photo-drama have expressed their satisfaction with its beautiful presentation of the prominent features of scripture and with its clear explanation of some points which long have puzzled critical people. Whoever sees it thereby obtains a grasp upon the Bible as a whole. The public are certainly grateful to Pastor Russell, through whose instrumentality this wonderful work of art is being exhibited.
Today the pastor's text was, "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." 2 Tim. 2:15.
We are all sadly aware that not many of the people of God have the full assurance of faith mentioned in the scriptures, the speaker said. Indeed, we must all admit that the great majority are losing, not only their faith, but also the foundation of faith. For years the great colleges of Christendom have been undermining faith by undermining belief in the Bible. While they do not make an attack upon faith itself, while they all admit that faith may have its place as a grand quality of character, and that the scriptures instruct for faith, yet they proceed to do the very same kind of work that Robert Ingersoll and Thomas Paine tried to accomplish to undermine confidence in the Bible as the word of God. That confidence is the very basis of all faith.
After we have lost our confidence, what have we left for a foundation of belief? We have merely what is called higher criticism and evolution; and this means that after a little process of reasoning along these lines many would conclude that the Bible is merely a collection of choice pieces of ancient Jewish literature, written by men who really knew less than we do.
The pastor then demonstrated that those who reject the Bible as the Word of God have no other foundation for whatever faith they may possess than the guess of this or that man, or of themselves. He pointed out the well-known fact that all men are more or less imperfect in judgment; and that if men were to picture God there would be as many different styles of God as there are different persons.
The speaker illustrated his point by calling attention to the numerous creeds formulated during the dark ages and to the different kinds of Gods those different creeds have pictured. The noblest minds of that time were deceived into worshiping the worst kind of images that could be made. He declared that while the heathen nations were making their ugly idols out of wood, stone, clay or metal, the nations of Christendom were printing atrocious descriptions [HGL593] of God the like of which could not be molded out of clay or fashioned out of anything else. He was not finding fault with our forefathers, but with the real instigator or the creedal misrepresentations of the Almighty. As St. Paul declares, "The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them."
Then the pastor showed that the eyes of many Christians are not wide open for the same reason that St. Paul gave the Corinthian church. The god of this world has fastened the bandages so tightly that it is with difficulty that any get the eyes of their understanding open. Again, St. Paul foretells that in the end of this age "many shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of persons." The pastor declared that we have come to the time when many have denied the faith and others are denying it good people, intelligent people, ministers of the gospel in the various pulpits, professors theologians, college presidents confessing that they have lost the basis of their faith.
We are not to suppose for even a moment that these people who are falling away from the faith are wicked. On the contrary, they are well-intentioned many of them fine people. But they have gotten under a delusion. In the light of the New Dispensation the delusions of the past are coming up constantly for criticism. Indeed so great is the conflict between the light of the gospel and the darkness of the creeds that people "see stars," so to speak, and are so astonished that they do not know what to think.
Next the pastor demonstrated that the great difficulty with people who are losing their confidence in the Bible as the word of God is that they are not familiar with its contents. Many are still holding to the scriptures in a blind way, hoping against hope that they may not lose their faith. They are afraid to read and afraid to think, lest they lose the very small amount of faith which they possess. If only such knew it, they never really have had a well-established faith.
The pastor proceeded to point out the difference between true faith and that which is often misnamed faith, but which in reality is credulity. The faith commanded in the scriptures is that which relates to things which God has promised. Our forefathers, he declared, had too much confidence in men. They swallowed the creeds of the dark ages; and the more absurd the proposition the more faith they thought they had. They should have asked: "Where has God declared such things?" He maintains that we should accept by faith only what the Lord has assured us of in His word.
We have made a great mistake as to what faith really is, he thinks. Faith must have a basis, and that basis must have some intelligent presentation. To believe in the Bible as the word of God merely because our parents did so is not faith at all; heathen peoples do just as well as that they believe as their parents did, without investigation. But to have faith in the Bible we must have proof that it is of God; and to have that evidence we must understand the word.
The pastor holds that most people are so perplexed that they do not know what to believe. And yet, he declared, at this very time when higher criticism is undermining the foundation of all faith, and when many intelligent people are afraid to think along scriptural lines, Bible Students are finding the word of God to be the most wonderful book in all the world. God's plan for human salvation was never so well understood as just now, in the midst of all the turmoil in the denominations, in the great institutions of learning and in the world.
The pastor then discussed some of the so-called findings of higher criticism that Moses did not write the Pentateuch, nor Isaiah the greater part of the prophecy which bears his name, etc. These critics, he declared, are trying to prove something by the outside of the Bible.
Their so-called findings he believes to be a matter of mere guesswork, although, as some of them are very bright men, they put up a strong argument in some things. They will undertake to prove that Jesus was mistaken when He declared that Isaiah the Prophet said thus and so; that St. Paul was also mistaken when he quoted from the Prophet Isaiah and said Thus saith the Prophet; that Daniel did not write the book which bears his name or, if he did, that it was fulfilled before the Christian era, notwithstanding Jesus; assertion to the contrary.
The pastor, like all reasoning Christian people, relies upon the internal evidences of the Bible that it is the word of God. That internal evidence cannot be doubted. The Old Testament prophecies and the teachings of the Lord and the apostles so interlock and depend one upon the other that no human being could possibly have thought out the great plan therein found.
All the way from Genesis to Revelation the parts so co-ordinate and fit together that one great, harmonious plan of the ages is the result.
Another strong proof of the inspiration of the Bible is furnished in present day conditions, which were foretold by the prophets thousands of years ago.
Then the speaker considered some of the objections to the Bible usually brought forward by infidels. He showed that it is a weak argument indeed which credits priests and knaves with writing the sacred book. If Catholics had made the Bible, they would naturally have put into it many things which are not there; for instance, they would have told about the mass, about purgatory, hell-fire and eternal torment, of which there is nothing said; they would also have intimated that we should use beads and images in worship; they would have had something about the immaculate conception of the Virgin, and about St. Peter's being the first pope, etc.
If, on the other hand, Presbyterians had written the Bible, they would have put in a great deal about hell, about elect and non-elect infants, etc. Methodists would have left out all about election making one's calling and election sure, the very elect, etc. for they do not know what to do with these texts. Our Calvinistic friend would have left out the texts about free grace; for these do not fit with their ideas of election. All these denominations would [HGL594] have inserted something in regard to "the trinity;" for they all hold that this doctrine is the very essence of faith, although it is not mentioned once in the Bible. The pastor's conclusion is that clearly the denominations did not make the Bible.
From its own standpoint, the speaker continued, the Bible is very simple and fully explains itself. He did not wish to be misunderstood as "poking fun" at the denominations; for he realizes that these dear people meant well, and he loves all who love the Lord. But he believes that the whole world is greatly injured by the false conception of God's character handed down from the dark ages, and that many people are going after sin today who would, if they had a right knowledge of God, be following after righteousness. Many men have been led to drinking and all sorts of debauchery and sin merely by reason of not seeing the real God, for if any one see Him, he is sure to love Him. Mankind is so made that worship is natural.
Notwithstanding the 6,000 years of falling, there is in every man's brain, unless he be an idiot, the quality of reverence, which impels him to desire to worship his Creator. But, according to St. Paul's argument in his letter to the Romans, although man was created perfect, there came a time in the history of the fallen race when men were unwilling longer to retain God in their minds; and then the Almighty gave them over to reprobate minds, to do improper things and to sink lower and lower in degradation. Then it was that the "doctrines of demons" were inculcated into the human mind, so as to keep men in ignorance, darkness and superstition. The god of this world blinds the minds of those who believe not blinds them by these various false doctrines which once God's people believed.
The pastor then gave the two views of the Almighty which once obtained in the thoughts of many Christians. One side of our minds, as it were, pictured God as the great representative of satanic energy, bent upon destroying nearly all the creatures whom He had brought into the world.
The other side, somehow, imagined Him as kind, loving and merciful. But we did not know how to balance these two sides. Fortunately for us, however, we got the devilish side subordinated, and thought of God as loving, and by going to Him daily in prayer we tried to forget the devilish part. The whole world has been more or less in this condition.
But thank God! said the pastor, we are in the time when the path of the just is shining more and more unto the perfect day. That day is now so near that we can almost see its dawn. In a little while the Church of Christ will have been fully gathered out of every people, nation, kindred and tongue, out of all denominations.
The pastor then explained how the consecrated people of God may have full assurance of faith. In His word God tells us that by nature we were children of wrath even as other; that Christ tasted death for the whole world and that by and by He will give human life restitution life to all who will receive it; but that meantime the call is for those who will separate themselves from the world and be "a peculiar people, zealous of good works" of everything that is God's will and ready to lay down their lives in doing that will. Those who know that such is that teaching of scripture have a good basis for faith. Those who have taken the steps of repentance of sin, of trusting in the Redeemer for salvation, of consecrating themselves to God, now have by faith all those graces of character reckoned to them which the world will actually receive during the thousand years of the reign of Christ. To the consecrated the Father has fulfilled His promise by giving them a measure of His holy spirit.
Lest any should misapprehend his meaning, the pastor explained that the Holy Spirit is not now manifested in the same way that it was in the early church. At that time it was manifested in a miraculous way with outward evidences, such as tongues, miracles of healing, etc., attesting that those who received these gifts were acceptable to God as members of His church, and had been begotten of the Holy Spirit. But after the church had been established, there was no further need of such manifestations. Throughout the remainder of the gospel age the Holy Spirit has manifested itself only by the fruits of righteousness meekness, gentleness, patience, brotherly kindness love.
When the miraculous gifts ceased, these fruits and graces of the Spirit continued.
The pastor concluded with an exhortation that the people of God see to it that they daily grow in grace and in knowledge, becoming more and more like the Lord Jesus in character. Our Lord said that every tree is known by its fruit. Are we bearing good fruit? he asked. Are we having more and more fellowship with God and with our Lord Jesus? Are we getting into deeper and broader sympathy with all of the household of faith? Are we coming more and more into sympathy with the poor world in its fallen condition, and with every good effort to help them up out of such condition? If so, then we have evidence not only that we have believed in the right book and in the true God, but that we are the children of God and heirs joint heirs with Jesus Christ, our Lord.
We shall be tested as to our willingness to suffer with our Lord. This does not mean suffering for wrong-doing; for ST Peter reminds us that a Christian who suffers as a busybody in other men's affairs is not suffering for Christ's sake. Perhaps one-third of the suffering in the world and in the church results from busy-bodying. But the people of God are not to suffer as evil-doers, but such suffering is not for evil-doing, even if they be so blamed. But "if any man suffer, let him suffer as a Christian." The speaker reminded his hearers that Jesus himself was accused of being an evil-doer, a blasphemer, an injurious person; and so were the apostles all their persecutions were on that score. But what the Apostle Peter says is that if you suffer let it be for something right that you have done, in harmony with your covenant with God, in harmony with God's word and will. Those who suffer as Christians should rejoice therein; for the Spirit of God and of glory rests on all such, and they may have full assurance of faith.