Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 9
January 2, 1958
NUMBER 34, PAGE 7,15b

God's Enduring Word

By George W. Tyler, San Diego, California

When Sir Walter Scott lay dying he called to his son-in-law, "Bring me the Book." "What book?" inquired Lockhart. "Can you ask?" the great author whispered. "There is but one." The world comes along and calls "THE BOOK" the Bible.

Its writers confidently affirm that God is its author. Many times in the Old Testament we find expressions like these, "The Lord spake unto Moses;" "As the Lord spake with Moses;" "The Lord said unto Samuel;" "As the Lord spake to David;" "The word of the Lord which he spake by His servant Elijah the prophet;" Isaiah wrote, "The Lord spake unto me;" "The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord;" Ezekiel wrote, "The word of the Lord came unto me;" Hosea wrote, "The word of the Lord came unto Hosea;" "The word of the Lord that came to Joel;" Amos wrote, "Thus saith the Lord;" "The word came unto Jonah;" Obadiah said, "Thus saith the Lord God;" "The word of the Lord that came to Micah;" "The word of God which came to Zephaniah." The prophets of old declare that God spoke unto them and commanded them to communicate His messages to the people. To Jeremiah the Lord said, "Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, speak unto them all that I command thee" Jer. 1:17.

The New Testament also furnishes weighty testimony. Concerning John the Baptist we have this, "The word of God came unto John" Lk. 3:2. After Jesus had been baptized a voice came from heaven saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." At the transfiguration a voice came out of the cloud which said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him" Matt. 17:5. Jesus recognized the closeness of his Father and Himself for he prayed, "Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one" Jno. 17:11 ARV. Jesus told His apostles, "The Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you" Jno. 14:26 ARV. The apostles claim to have received communications from God and these they committed to writing for the benefit of all mankind. With but one exception, they gave their lives in holy service to their Saviour. With these premises before us we must conclude that God can and did talk to His servants. In writing the New Testament the Holy Spirit God sent guided the writers. Peter sums the whole matter in these words, "This is now, beloved, the second epistle that I write unto you; and in both of them I stir up your sincere mind by putting you in remembrance; that ye should remember the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and the commandment of the Lord and Saviour through your apostles" 2 Pet. 3:1,2.

Too, judged by its fruits, the Bible's claims stand in the court of reason, and on this basis the idea of its inspiration can confidently be permitted to rest.

God has spoken and His word is indestructible. "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away." His word which governs His church is as indestructible as is His church. If one goes the other goes also. They stand or fall together. Peter wrote, "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever" 1 Pet. 1:23 (AV) and in verse 25 of the same chapter he says, "The word of the Lord endureth forever." God's word ever lives, for it is eternal, as God is eternal.

The prophets and apostles describe "a kingdom which cannot be shaken" Heb. 12:28; Isa. 11:7; Dan. 2:44; 2 Pet. 1:11. Its king is the eternal Christ, "The same yesterday, and today, and forever" Heb. 13:8. Its constitution is the everlasting gospel, that is, "The faith which was once for all delivered to the saints" the sacred scriptures. Its institution is the church.

The Great Teacher says this Book will be opened at the final judgment of man: "The words I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last days" Jno. 12:48. The house built on the Word will stand the tests of time and storm because its foundation is on solid rock and not shifting sand.

Many have tried to destroy the Bible. This is an ancient racket. It was tried in the days of the apostles. As it was in the beginning, it is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Time has not shown any impairment of the Bible's claim to immortality.

In some so-called modern "civilized" nations it is a punishable offense to possess a Bible. Eminent scholars have been burned at the stake for translating God's word. Even in America bonfires have been made of Bibles. It has been buried under denominational creeds and is not popular with ambitious ecclesiastics who are hungry for popularity and power.

More than three generations of German Rationalists educated the people away from the Bible. The Prussian professors thought they had taken the Lord from His throne and reduced the Bible to mere scraps of paper. They prepared the soil for the super man and a super nation. But back in the Book there was something these great scholars had overlooked, "The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure" Ps. 2:2-6. The armies of the allies destroyed Rationalistic Germany. I do not fear Communism because it is trying to do the impossible — destroy God and His word and obliterate Christianity. The Soviet Union will go the same way as all the other nations that have forsaken God — down to destruction. If America deserts Christ and God it too will be destroyed unless it repents in sackcloth and ashes.

Infidelity was imported from Germany under the guise of religion. It found a harbor in the University of Chicago and soon spread to most of the divinity schools in our land. Our "Christian" infidels wear sheep's clothing, occupy divinity chairs in colleges and universities, hold high places of authority in the denominational churches, edit religious journals, grace the prominent pulpits, write books of glowing "sweetness and light," run missionary societies and similar organizations and very willingly offer themselves as regulators of the whole universe. I am afraid some of this clan have found their way into the church for which Christ gave His life.

The danger from these Germanized Rationalists, modernists, lies in their hypocritical profession of sainthood, their smoothness and polish, their gumshoe espionage system and their unscrupulous morals. These modernists have no horns, forked tails, or pitchforks publicly displayed. They are clever on the platform, winsome in their ways, exhibit broad phylacteries of scholarship, make their super intellectualism clearly obvious, they are stealthy, pious and so angelic in their makeup that they deceive the very elect. Christ warned against them in Matt. 24:24. Paul found some young preachers who had made shipwreck of the faith because of their baneful propaganda everywhere we learn from 1 Tim. 1:19, 20 and 2 Tim. 2:17,18.

Some years ago in a daily paper discussing a group of modernists whose progenitors flourished in the days of the apostles the following appeared, "We are struck with the hypocrisy and treachery of these attacks on Christianity. This is a free country and a free age, and men can say what they choose about religion, but this is not what we arraign these divinity professors for. Is there no place in which to assail Christianity but in a divinity school (or a college of the Bible G. W. T.) ? Is there no one to write infidel books except professors of Christian theology? Is a theological seminary (called by Bro. T. Q. Martin "a theological cemetery") an appropriate place for a general massacre of Christian doctrines? We are not championing either Christianity or infidelity, but only condemning infidels masquerading as men of God and Christian teachers. Young preachers, ponder this clipping long and very prayerfully. Don't become a Hymenaeus, Alexander or a Philetus, shipwrecks of the faith.

The apostle Peter calls these men "angels of light;" "wells without water;" "clouds that are carried with a tempest;" the apostle Paul describes them as "false brethren;" "traitors"; John says they are "antichrists"; Jude designates them as "wandering stars" and Jesus classifies them as "wolves in sheep's clothing."

Of this nefarious group of the so-called "angels of light cult" God says, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world ?" 1 Cor. 1:19,20. Not one word of the word of the Lord has fallen to the ground or become impotent. It still flourishes in the noblest characters that adorn this old earth.

The Bible is great because of what it is; what it has done; what it will do and proposes to do for men in this life as well as offering the hope of eternal life to all who are obedient and faithful to its teaching.

The Bible, with its gospel of grace, continues saving men's souls, changing degenerate sinners into noble Christians. To one who hears the word of God with a desire to really understand it, and with the intention of walking in the way it points out, the gospel is "the power of God unto salvation" Rom. 1:16. If a man cannot be moved by the story of Jesus and His love, to accept salvation on the terms of the gospel, he is beyond the reach of the means ordained by God for the salvation of men and we have no intimation that God in His infinite mercy will bring any other means to bear for the salvation of such.

The Bible still survives because Christ is in it, saying to troubled souls of every age and clime, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest."