The Ingenuity of Unbelief

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 22, 1910

The Ingenuity of Unbelief

SURELY the men of Nineveh will rise up in judgment to condemn many in this generation; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, while many a pulpit in our day is criticizing the book of that prophet. The ingenuity of unbelief is certainly marvelous. Here, for instance, is a theological professor giving a study of Jonah in the current Homiletic Review. He says:—

Jehovah commands Jonah to go to Nineveh, and announce the destruction of that city, owing to the wickedness of its inhabitants. This command puts Jonah in a difficult position. If he disobeys and stays in Palestine, Jehovah, the god of that country, will punish him; if he obeys and goes to Nineveh, Bel, the supreme god of that country, will punish him for coming into his territory with an order from a strange god. Thus, either obedience or disobedience means punishment. There is only one course open to him to escape the difficulty: he can flee into a country in which neither Bel nor Jehovah has any power.

Only think of representing Jonah as possessed of the old heathen tribal idea of deity, when he was a prophet of God, living in an age of Israel that at least had the books of Moses, the historical books of Scripture, and the psalms of David. Many of the writings of theological unbelief pass comprehension. In one of the leading British reviews not long ago it was seriously suggested that Moses, while herding sheep in Midian, had discovered the naphtha springs of that region, and by this means produced the pillar of fire and of cloud which led Israel through the wilderness; and that Elijah likewise had this secret, and poured naphtha oil over the sacrifice, instead of water, in his contention with the priests of Baal, thus producing the consuming fire. So the fancies of unbelief increase in folly. There is but one answer to the volume of unbelief pouring upon the world even in religious circles; namely, “Preach the word.” The Word of God is still the power that convicts of sin, and causes men to know that the voice of the living God speaks in his holy Word.