Overturning the Word by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · May 19, 1910

Overturning the Word

By C. M. S.

MANY religious teachers have accepted the evolution theory of creation instead of the Biblical account, because they even have come to believe that the Biblical narrative is “contrary to known laws of the evolution of nature,” and because “the truths of geology have supplanted” the record of Genesis. But it is certain that there are few deductions more uncertain than the deductions of geologists in regard to the history of the earth. Each geologist who has attempted to give the age of the earth has reckoned it some millions of years older or younger than other equally learned geologists. Concerning the history and the composition of the earth itself the theories of scientists are various and diverse, and many scientists have won their way to notoriety through overthrowing the theories of other scientists.

Science has given various scientific reasons for earthquake and volcanic phenomena; and these have been abandoned one by one, because later science has proved the older demonstrations unscientific and unreliable, being overturned by later manifestations of the powers that produce these phenomena.

Yet, in spite of these well-known facts, there are many with whom the deductions of science are sufficient to prove the Biblical account of creation wrong, because this science does not agree with the Bible. It hardly needs to be said that it is entirely to the credit and honor of the Bible that such science does not agree with it. If it did, the Bible certainly would be overthrown with each overturning of one of the deductions of that kind of science; for science has continually overthrown such science, and demonstrated the overthrow; and the process is a continuous one. The Bible could not agree with such science and be the Word of God. It is strange, however, that so many choose to believe that each of these untenable theories has overthrown the Bible; and the strangest part of it all is that so many who have entered the sacred desk have forsaken the solid Word for the ever-shifting theories of what is termed science. “Science” has been able to arrive at few conclusions that it has not been able later to overthrow; and these few unassailable conclusions are in harmony with the teachings of that Book which is the mouthpiece of him who is the Author of true science.

The “known laws of the evolution of nature” are not as surely known now by some scientists as they were a few years ago. Many scientists are now discarding the Darwinian theory of the creation of animal life. The missing link has, admittedly, not been found; for no such link as the evolutionist is looking for was ever lost. There is more than one missing link, however, in the theory; for the Darwinian has not been able to weld up his chain from the protoplasm even to the monkey,—not by many a phantom link. The difference between the other classes of animal life are as clear and definite as between the monkey and the man. The scientist can not trace any animal out of one species and into another, or trace the origin of one genus back into another genus. Each had its own beginning, and did not spring from a dissimilar order.

With this showing, it is asking us to exercise a credulity that the scientist would not tolerate for a moment toward the Bible, when we are asked by such scientists to accept such deductions and turn our back upon the Word of God. The psalmist declares that “the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.” It is better to be simple enough to believe that sure testimony of him who is “from everlasting to everlasting,” and therein possess the truest wisdom, the key to the true science, than it is to give ourselves over to the wisdom of this world, shifting, uncertain, anchorless, rudderless, and self-destructive, believing all our lives that which is not true, and refusing to our eternal ruin to believe the sure Word of him in whom we live and move and have our being.

And yet to-day there is a great wave of popular teaching sweeping over the world that is carrying men and women away from the Word, and toward these vacillating, unsubstantial theories which contradict the Word. The colleges are full of such teachings; the public schools are full of them; the pulpits of many churches are overflowing with them; and now many Sunday-schools have taken them up. The set purpose of the deceiver is to create in the minds of young and old disrespect for the Word of God and a disbelief in its teachings.

The campaign is now on in all its might, and the baleful results are seen in a religion of cold formality, a patterning after the worldliness of the unconverted, a dearth of vital godliness, a lessening number of conversions, and a general turning to the world, whose teachings they have put above the words of Holy Writ. As a consequence, faith is disappearing, and the stirring words of God's last solemn warning are falling on leaden ears wherever that propaganda has found acceptance among the people. Perhaps the greatest menace to the soul to-day is found in this faith-destroying disease which is sweeping through Christendom like an epidemic of death.

The Christian’s hope and shield are in God, and in the Word which he has given. To forsake that Word is to turn our back upon the One who gave it, and in that there is no hope. To overturn that Word would be equivalent to overturning the very throne of God itself. It is a large undertaking, which, if it were successful, would plunge the whole creation into the abyss of eternal death and the blackness of darkness forever.

The science which has made that presumptuous attempt has not yet demonstrated its power to create one protoplasmic cell, to say nothing of a peopled world; neither can it save the souls of those who flee to it, flinging reproach upon the Word of Him who can do all this, and a myriad other things of which we have never dreamed. It is best to believe God; it is safe to believe him; and there is no safety in anything else. There is no combination of men or demons that can overthrow that glorious Word in which our hope is found. Its blessed promises have cheered the sick and suffering, the saint and the martyr, the despondent and the oppressed, through many centuries. It is no ignus fatuus, but the steady light of a sure hope, a sure guide for youth and age through every wilderness of this world. No confidence placed in it can be misplaced, and no hope built upon its promises will ever end in disappointment.

C. M. S.