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Saturday, November 22, 2014

 

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The Truth About God And The Bible
By Robert Roberts


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Another feature of the Bible is the perfect modesty of all the men who took a part in the development of Bible things; modesty, that is, as regards any credit for the part they performed. The tendency in human nature, acting by itself, is to take the credit of any gift possessed and to glory in it, and make it the means of honour and personal consequence. No one with the history of mankind before him can deny this: But here are men who refuse the credit, as in the case recorded in Acts 14: "Sirs, why do ye teach these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities UNTO THE LIVING GOD." Or Acts 3:12: "Why look ye so earnestly upon us (Peter and John), as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?" Again, in Acts 10:25 we read: "And as Peter was coming in Cornelius met him " (Cornelius having sent for him by divine direction), "and fell down at his feet and worshipped him; but Peter took him up, saying, Stand up I myself also am a man." In 1 Cor. 15:9, we find Paul saying: "For I am the least of the Apostles that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God." In Exodus 16:8, Moses, speaking of the murmurings of the people, says: "What are we? Your murmurings are not against us, but against the Lord." In Numbers 11:29, Moses, when told deprecatingly by Joshua that somebody else had received the Spirit, replied: "Enviest thou for my sake? Would GOD all the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them."

In Daniel 2:30, Daniel, when cited before Nebuchadnezzar to explain a dream which had baffled the magicians, prefaced his explanation by these words: "As for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom I have more than any living, but for their sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king, and that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart." If Daniel had been an impostor, like all other impostors, he would have placed his own credit in the front rank; instead of that, he says the explanation he is about to give is not due to his superior wisdom, but to communication from God. That is the utterance of a true man, who knew that the information was not out of his own head but that he had received it from external sources. Then there is
the case of Joseph in Gen. 41:15-16. Joseph was standing before Pharaoh under similar circumstances, and was called upon to explain an enigmatical dream. Pharaoh said to him: "I have heard say of thee that thou canst understand a dream to interpret it. And Joseph answered Pharaoh saying, It is not in me; GOD SHALL GIVE PHARAOH AN ANSWER OF PEACE."

Coming down to CHRIST himself we see the same peculiarity. What does he say concerning the miracles he wrought and the wisdom he spake? "The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself; but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works" (John 14:10). "I am come in my Father's name" (John 5:43). And again, "Of my own self, I can do nothing" (John 5:30).

Now, although this argument may not tell in an excited public meeting, it will in the calm hours of anxious thought be felt in its full weight by those who are capable of appreciating an argument. It goes more than anything to show that the men who had to do with the transactions involved in the scriptures, and the writing of them, were true men, and not such men as unbelief would represent.

 

 

CHAPTER 10: A Nation That Changed Its God

 


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