Why Study The Bible?

Why Study The Bible?
WHY STUDY THE BIBLE?
BY G. DALLAS SMITH. The study of the Bible is of vital and supreme importance to the whole human race. To Timothy in the long ago, Paul said, "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15). Timothy had been reared under quite favorable circumstances, in that his mother and his grandmother were both women of faith; they believed in and worshiped the God of our fathers. This mother, no doubt, and probably the grandmother, had taught Timothy the Holy Scriptures from his youth; for Paul says, "that from a child thou hast known the sacred writings which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Timothy had known the sacred writings from a child. But where is the child today that knows the Holy Scriptures? Where are the young people who know the sacred writings? And where are the older people of whom it may be truthfully said they know the Holy Scriptures? WHERE ARE THEY? Our chil­dren may enter the first grade of our public schools and pass from grade to grade until they are graduated, and still know nothing about God's great book —the Bible. They may enter the higher schools and training schools and grad­uate with honors from these, and still be almost as ignorant of the Bible as they were when they first saw the light. They may enter the colleges and universities of the land and graduate from these with high honors and still know prac­tically nothing about the greatest book in all the world. I do not mean to criticise the public schools, the colleges and universities. It is not their mission to teach the Bible, or religion. In the main, they are strictly literary institutions. But I am merely stating the facts as they really exist. One may be indeed learned and brilliant without a knowledge of the Bible, but no one is truly educated—in the truest and best sense —as long as he is ignorant of the sacred writings. It has been said, " I f you educate a mean man, you make him meaner still." If I believed this I should favor the closing of all educational institutions; for there is more or less meanness in air of us. But while it is not true that educa­tion makes a mean man meaner, still it is true that an educated mean man is a greater enemy to society than the uneducated mean man—all because he is more capable of devising and scheming, and of executing his wicked schemes by virtue of his education. The fault lies in the character of the education. The mental faculties are trained and de­veloped while the moral faculties often go undeveloped. We should plead for an education that develops one phys­ically, mentally and morally. But such an education is impossible if we do not take into account the one Great Book —the book of sacred writings.

There are many reasons high and holy why we should study the Bible as we do no other book in the world. There are vital and eternal reasons why we should know the Bible as we know no other book in the world. In the first place, no one can know God without knowing the Bible. We can­not know God as he is without a Bible education. Oh, we may have heard about him; we may know some things about him; but we cannot know him as he really is unless we know him as he is revealed in his holy word. To Solomon, in the long ago, David said, "Thou, my son, Solomon, know thou the God of thy fathers, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind." And it is just as necessary for us to know God as it was for Solomon to know him, and the only way for us to know him is to study his revela­tion —know him as he is revealed. From the famous Areop­agus in Athens, Paul addressed an educated, cultured and refined audience, and, among other things, he said to them: "I perceive that you are very religious, for as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I saw an altar with this inscrip­tion, 'To the unknown God.' Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you." (Acts 17:22-24). Now here is an audience of educated, cultured and refined people —a people who spent their time in learning something new and imparting it to others, a real learned audience, but they were ignorant of the one true and living God who had given them existence in the world and from whom all their real blessings came. And it is possible today for people to be learned, cultured and refined, and still be ignorant of the God from whom all blessings flow. It is not only possible for it to be thus, but we are living in the midst of just such conditions right now. Many of the most learned, cultured and refined, from a worldly viewpoint, are grossly, densely and shamefully ignorant of the fundamental principles of God's revelation to the human race; and, therefore, ignorant of God, of course. We can never come to know God through the wisdom of this world. To the church at Corinth Paul said: "For after that in the wisdom of God the world by its wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolish­ness of preaching to save them that believe." (I. Cor. 1:21). He says, "The world through its wisdom knew not God." And we may truthfully add, that the world through its wisdom cannot know God. But is it not possible to know God through the book of Nature? Does not Nature in all its beauty and glory speak to us of him who in the begin­ning created all things? The condition of countless thou­sands among the heathen nations today, many of whom are close students of Nature, but who do not know the God of their spirits, answers in thunder tones, NO! As a matter of fact, man left to the study of Nature, without a revela­tion, falls to worshipping Nature. He is never able to see through Nature to the God who stands behind it. In the long ago, the Egyptians who lived on the banks of the historic River Nile, discovered that as a result of the annual overflow there was left a sediment which enriched their lands and gave them abundant harvests. But they did see through all this and recognize the God of heaven as the giver of all good?

No, they fell to worshipping the River Nile, and it be­came a sacred river to them. When Primeval man, in ages past, began to study the heavens, he observed that the rising sun dispelled the mists and fogs and set all Nature to singing. But did he discover in all this the God of Nature who stands behind the Sun? No, he fell down and wor­shipped the sun. And when the sun went down behind the western hills, and the stars began to blossom, one by one, "in the infinite meadows of heaven," "forever singing as they shine the hand that made us is divine," did primitive man hear the "music of the skies" and discover the Cod who spake the worlds into existence? Not at all. He became a star worshipper. No wonder Paul says. "The world through its wisdom knew not God." There is just one way to know God, and that is to know the sacred writ­ings —to know the Bible. But does not David say, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork?" Yes, the heavens do declare the glory of God, but only to the man who knows God created them. The heavens do not declare the glory of God to the man who is ignorant of God. We can know God only through his revelation —by studying his word.

We should study the Bible, also, as a means of knowing Jesus our Savior. We can know great and prominent men without knowing the Bible, but we cannot know the man Christ Jesus, "the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" unless we, know God's revelation respecting him. One day while Jesus sat at Jacob's well near the city of Sychar, or ancient Shechem, a woman of Samaria came to draw water and he asked her for a drink. The woman, not knowing him, except that he was a Jew, said to Jesus, "How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest a drink of me, which am a Samaritan woman?" And Jesus said to her: "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, give me drink, thou wouldst have asked of him and he would have given thee living water." (John 4:1-15). Now here is a woman who had been married five times, a woman who is versed in her own religion and that of her fore­fathers, but she does not know Jesus. And there are multi­tudes of people today, grown people, educated people, and people who know their religion, who do not know Jesus as he really is —all because they do not know God's revelation respecting him. The only way possible to know Jesus is to know him as he is revealed, and the man who is not familiar with his life story as pictured in the New Testa­ment, does not know Jesus, regardless of whatever else he may know. The Jews of Jerusalem condemned and killed Jesus —all because they did not know him, and they did not know him because they did not know the Scriptures. Some years ago back in Tennessee a man shot and killed one of his best friends who had driven till late in the night that he might spend the remainder of the night with him. The man had had some trouble with another man during the after­noon, and his life had been threatened. He went home and retired, expecting trouble before morning, and therefore prepared for it. Mis friend drove up to the front gate late in the, night, and invited him out. lie, thinking it was the man who had threatened his .life, opened the door and fired the contents of his gun into the body of his friend. It was a pitiful circumstance, and genuinely regretted by the friends of both men. So it is a pitiful wail that goes up from the Jews of Jerusalem when Peter convinces them that they have crucified their own Messiah. They at once, cry out and say, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" (Acts 2:37). They had killed, not only their best friend, but their Savior and Redeemer, just because they did not know him — just because they did not. know the Scriptures pertaining to him. But is it of so much importance that we know God and Jesus? Is it essential to our salvation to know them? The importance of knowing God is suggested and empha­sized by the apostle Paul when, in writing to the church at Thessalonica, he says: "To you who are troubled, rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God." (2 Thessalonians 1:7-8). Since Jesus, when he comes, is to take vengeance on all those who know not God, it is of supreme importance that we "know the God of our fathers and serve him with a perfect heart and a willing mind." Again, the importance, yea, the. necessity, of knowing both the Father and the Son, is clearly set- forth in the language of Jesus himself when he says, "This is life, eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."' (John 17:3). Jesus says our eternal life depends on our knowing him and his Father, and our knowing Jesus anr| the Father depends on our knowing the Bible. And our knowing the Bible de­pends on our studying the Bible. Hence we should all heed the admonition to "Study to show thyself approved unto God." And again, we should study the Bible as a means of knowing the great plan of salvation which was wrought out in the life work of Jesus and scaled by his own precious blood. Jeremiah says: "O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." (Jeremiah 10:23). And this is the very reason why God has given us a revelation. If man were capable of directing his own steps, he would have no need for a guide­book. If all men knew intuitively just how to be saved — just how to direct their steps and alter their ways, so as to meet the divine approval, then we would not need this reve­lation. But God has graciously revealed the plan of salva­tion to us because it was an absolute necessity. Just as the eunuch in the long ago needed some one to guide him, since he had not the New Testament scriptures to guide him, just so man today needs a guide in matters to religion, and God has given us the Bible for this purpose. But is it neces­sary to know the plan of salvation? Is it necessary to know how to be saved? Suppose one does what he honestly thinks is right, maintaining at all times a good clear conscience, can he not be saved in this way? The fact that Jesus sent the apostles into the world to proclaim and make known the plan of salvation, with the assurance that they would be persecuted, shamefully treated, even killed for the perform­ance of this duty, shows that it is necessary for the world to know the plan of salvation. Why should Jesus subject the apostles to such labor and toil, persecution and death, if a man can be saved without knowing the plan of salvation. Furthermore, Jesus says, "If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the ditch." (Malt. 15:14). It matters not how honest one may be, if he is blind to the truth, and is led by some one who is blind to the same truth, he and the leader both will be lost. There is no other construction to place on Jesus' language.

We should study the Bible because of the fruit it has borne and is bearing even today. Have you stopped to con­sider what the Bible has done for the world of mankind? It has made better homes, better fathers, better mothers, better husbands, better wives and better children. It has made better masters, better servants, better teachers and better pupils. It has made better everything. The Bible has ever been the forerunner of enlightenment, civilization and progress. Wherever it has been read, loved and obeyed, the land has been made to prosper and to blossom as the rose. It has built our schools, established our orphanages, and founded our institutions for the blind and the infirm. Contrast for a moment the conditions in Spain and in the United States. In Spam for hundreds of years the Bible has been, in a large measure, a closed book, because it is a priest-ridden land. In the United States there is an open Bible in practically every home. And what do we find? In Spain, out of a population of more than nineteen millions, there are more than twelve millions who can neither read nor write. There are said to be thousands of towns in Spain which have no schools of any kind, and hundreds of villages in the interior where there is not a soul who can read. Con­trast this with conditions in the United States, where almost every child is within the sound of a school bell, and you can begin to realize what an open Bible has been to this "land of the free and home of the brave." The Bible has done much to lift up the human race, in lifting up woman, who is the mother of the race. The Bible found her in slavery, and has in an important sense liberated her and exalted her to her proper sphere in life. It has been said, "Woman was not taken from man's foot that lie should tread upon her; nor' from his head that she should rule over him; but from his side that she might walk side by side with him through life, to enjoy his pleasure and share his sor­rows." But she enjoys this privilege only in a land where the Bible is read and obeyed. In other lands, as a rule, woman does not appear with her husband and sons on the streets. And in the home she serves them and then eats as the servants do in this country. It is a matter of history that the American Indians made their wives do all the hard work —all the drudgery —and then occupy the coldest place in the wigwam, as every school boy and girl knows. In the East Indies it was for a long time the custom to burn the widow alive on the funeral pyre of her dead husband, until the English law forbade it. The princes in the Fiji Islands were accustomed to build their palaces with each corner over a woman buried alive, so little were the rights of woman considered. It is only in a land where the Bible has molded the sentiment that woman enjoys, to any extent, her God- given rights. And if she does not enjoy all her rights and privileges in our own land, it is all because we are still far from being a Bible people even yet. When we all learn to practice unreservedly the principles of divine truth, as set forth in the "Golden Rule," then all men and women will enjoy their full and just rights, and then will dawn that happy time of which the prophets of old dreamed, when "they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks" —a time when the nations shall learn war no more; when every man may sit down under his vine and fig tree, and none shall make them afraid; for the glory of the Lord shall fill the whole earth.

I must not fail to suggest one more reason why we should study the Bible as we do no other book in the world. It is the one book by which we are to be judged when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ in that last great day! Paul says God has "appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness" (Acts 17:31) by his Son Jesus Christ. Again he says, "For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Chirst." (Romans 14:10). And once more he says, "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." (2 Corinthians 5:10). There is no possible way to escape the judgment. We must meet it either prepared or unprepared. And when we stand in the presence of the Judge of all the earth, we shall not be admitted into the "Realms of the blest" by our various church registers. We must be judged by the Bible. John says, "I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works." (Revelation 20:12). Surely, in view of the great judgment day, toward which we are all hastening, we should study to show ourselves approved unto God, workmen who need not to be ashamed, handling aright the word of truth. The Bible is the one living and eternal book. Jesus says, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away." (Matthew 24:35). And the apostle Peter said, "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and flower falleth: but the word of the Lord endureth forever." (1 Peter 1:24-25). This was spoken nearly two thousand years ago, and still the word of God endures —it still abides, and is destined to live throughout eternity. Voltaire, the great French infidel, who died in the year 1778, predicted that in one hundred years Christianity would be swept from the globe and the Bible lost. But what really happened? About twenty-five years after his death the British and Foreign Bible Society was founded, and this one Bible concern alone has given to the world some two hundred million copies of the Bible in some four hundred different languages. In the year 1905, this Bible society issued about six million copies of the Bible. This means eleven copies every minute, seven hun­dred copies every hour, more than sixteen thousand copies every day for the entire years. Even Voltaire's printing press, on which his infidel literature was printed, was made to print Bibles after his death, and the very house in which he lived was used as a storage room for Bibles, so mightily grew the word of God. Thomas Jefferson, in his book on Western Virginia, published about the time Voltaire died, predicted that in fifty years from then there would not be a Bible in America, unless it was found in some Curiosity Shop. But what happened in this case? Well, just about fifty years from that time the American Bible and Tract Society passed a resolution to place a copy of the Bible in every home in the United States, and that good work has continued with marvelous success, until today it is practically impossible to find a home where there is not at least one copy of the Bible. Truly the Bible lives!

According to reliable estimates, there are now in circu­lation some seven hundred million copies of the Bible, in more than five hundred different languages. And the de­mand for it is greater today than ever before. Well may we ask, how has the Bible won this rare distinction among books? Strange as it may seem, it has won its way in the world in the face of the bitterest opposition. And its exist­ence and popularity today is little less than a stupendous miracle which attests its divine origin. The original manu­scripts from which the Bible was compiled were committed to the Jews for safe-keeping. These writings abounded in the severest denunciations of the Jews, and proclaimed, over and over, again and again their utter destruction on account of their many sins. So, the most natural thing at all would have been for the Jews to rid themselves of the whole of it; but they preserved them with even superstitious care. Infidels have from time to time spent their strength in trying to destroy the Bible, while Rome has tried to burn it and its readers out of existence. Still, the Old Book rises up today like a phoenix from the fire, as little harmed by their feeble attacks as were Shadrack, Meshack and Abed- nego by Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace in the long ago. It- reminds one somewhat of the Irishman's fence which was built about his premises, three feet high and four feet wide. When asked why he had been so foolish as to build a fence wider than it was high, he replied. "So when the storm blows it over it will be higher than it was before." It is even so with the Bible. After all the storms of persecution that have been hurled against it by atheists, infidels, skeptics and higher critics, it occupies a higher place in the world today than ever before. The most popular books written by men seldom ever reach a sale of more than fifty thou­sand copies a year, and they do not often survive the cen­tury in which they were produced. Few books will bear a second reading. But here is the oldest authentic book in the world; one that has been read more than any other book in all the world, and yet it is the most popular seller in the whole catalog of books today —selling at the enormous rate of fifty thousand copies a day —a million and a half copies a month, or twenty million copies a year! How sublimely true are the poet's words,

"Steadfast, serene, immovable, the same
Year after year burns on that quenchless flame;
Shine on, that inextinquishable light."

Let us remember that the Bible is a divine product, wrought into the texture of human history and literature by the gradual unfolding of the ages. It is the one book that deals with man as an immortal soul —making known the beginning of the race, and going even beyond the begin­ning unto God, who is "from everlasting to everlasting," and who in the beginning created the heavens and the earth. It is the one book that reveals the origin, the mission and the destiny of the human race. Without it we are lost in the maze of human speculation in our efforts to answer the question, "Whence came man and whither does he go?" True, men may theorize about it, look wise, and tell us we are only highly developed apes, or an improved stock of monkeys; but this is not very complimentary to the human race, and should be repudiated by all who have any respect for themselves or their forefathers. It is decidedly more reasonable and rational to accept the simple, straightforward story of man's origin; namely, that he was created in the express image of his Maker. The Bible not only reveals man's origin, but his final and ultimate destiny, and it is the only book that does. Other books will tell of a man's birth, his education, his failures and achievements, his death and burial; but there they all close. The Bible is the only book that lights up perpetually the pathway of the living and then throws its bright rays of hope beyond the river of death, bidding us- to walk through the valley and the shadow of death and fear no evil. The Bible is pre-eminently the "Book of books" —the one book forever outshining all other books in the literary firmament as the sun outsplendors all the planets that move in their orbits forever around him. And in the language of another: "This old book contains the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners and the happiness of believers. Its histories are true, its doc­trines are holy, its precepts are binding, and its decisions are immutable. Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, and practice it to be holy. It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you. It is the trav­eler's map, the pilgrim's staff, the sailor's compass, the soldier's sword and the Christian's charter. Here paradise is restored, heaven is opened and the gates of hell are dis­closed. Christ is its grand subject, our good its design, and the glory of God its end. It should fill the memory, rule the heart and guide the feet. Read it slowly, frequently, prayerfully. It is a mine of wealth, a paradise of glory and a river of pleasure. It is given you in life, will be open at the judgment, and be remembered forever. It involves the highest responsibility, rewards the greatest labor and con­demns all who trifle with its holy contents."