p. 7 | The Father of Infidelity by G. B. THOMPSON

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 28, 1911

The Father of Infidelity

By G. B. THOMPSON

G. B. THOMPSON

“But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption.” 2 Peter 2: 12.

This text states the parenthood of all infidelity. It is the offspring of ignorance. Those who rail at God’s Word are speaking “evil of the things that they understand not.” Skeptics are not Bible students. Ask them to find the text, and usually they are embarrassed; they do not know where it is, or just how it reads. God’s Holy Book is read in the spirit of carping criticism, as by one who is hunting for something to criticize, rather than food for his famishing soul. Usually we find what we are looking

for.

There come times, however, when men desire to turn to God for comfort. They may rail at prayer; but put them on a ship on the high seas in a terrible storm, and let the grizzled, weather-beaten captain announce that all hope of reaching port is gone, and these same blasphemers will appeal for help to the God whom they have cursed.

What is needed is a thorough, prayerful, devotional study of God’s Word, by which we gain a stronger grip on the great fundamental principles revealed therein.

Proper criticism is all right, but “there comes a time in a man’s life when he does not look over the letter of his wife or his friend to see whether the sentences are properly balanced, or whether there is any error in spelling or punctuation: he yearns for the message which the letter holds. There comes a time when one’s Bible is God’s love-letter to him, and he reads it for the message that will strengthen his soul and comfort him in the midst of his burdens.” Such reading of the Word will strengthen faith, and refresh the soul.

Some skeptics were once railing at the Christian religion, and James Russell Lowell said:—

“When the microscopic search of skepticism which has hunted the heavens and sounded the seas to disprove the existence of the Creator, has turned its attention to human society and has found a place on this planet ten miles square where a decent man can live in decency, comfort, and security, supporting and educating his children, unspoiled and unpolluted; a place where age is reverenced, infancy cherished, manhood respected, womanhood honored, and human life held in due regard,—when skeptics can find such a place ten miles square on this globe, where the gospel of Christ has not gone first and cleared the way, and laid the foundations, and made decency and security possible, it will then be in order for the skeptics to move thither and there ventilate their views.”

Destroy the Bible! Men have said they would. The destroyers are gone, but the Word of God is still here. It lives and abides forever. A writer has said:—

“If men should try to put it [the Bible] away from us, they would be obliged first of all to get rid of all the copies in all the languages; there are 160,000,000, say, of the Old and New Testaments in one book and portions of the book. You must have all these piled together in a pyramidal mass and reduced to ashes before you can say you have destroyed the Bible.

“Then go to the libraries of the world, and when you have selected every book that contains a reference to the Old or the New Testament, you must eliminate from each book all such passages; and until you have so treated every book of poetry and prose, excising all ideas of grandeur and purity and tenderness and beauty, for the knowledge of which the poets and prose writers are indebted to the Bible; until you have taken all these from between the bindings and turned them to ashes, leaving the emasculated fragments behind,—not until then have you destroyed the Bible.

“You must then go to the galleries of art throughout the world, and you must slash and daub over and obliterate the achievements that the genius of the artist has produced. Not until then have you destroyed the Bible.

“Have you done it then? What next? You must visit every conservatory of music, and not until the world shall stand voiceless as to its masters,—not until then have you destroyed the Bible.

“Have you done it then?—No! There is one thing more you must perform. There is one copy of the Bible still living. It is the cemetery of the Christian. The cemeteries, while they exist, are Bibles, and to suppress the Book, to let not a trace of it be discovered, you must pass from gravestone to gravestone, and with mallet and chisel cut out every name that is Biblical and every inspiring passage of Scripture graven thereon. To destroy the Bible you must also blot from the memory of every Christian its promises and comforts. Not until you have done all this, can you destroy the Bible.”

Thank God for a Book which reveals to human understanding the attributes of a loving, merciful Creator, who inhabiteth eternity, and whose name is holy. Let us make this blessed Book our daily companion.

Takoma Park, D. C.