Emphasizing the Old Religion

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 10, 1910

Emphasizing the Old Religion

SPEAKING of the inroads of infidelity and of the efforts made by advocates of the “New Religion” to undermine the old-time Bible faith, the Bible Standard (Baptist) of Feb. 24, 1910, gives expression to the following excellent thoughts:—

You discard some of the teachings of the Bible, and you spoil the entire Book. It has been conclusively proved that when man deviates from a few of the cardinal doctrines of the Scriptures, he eventually departs from the whole of them. Witness the Papacy. It grew out of a mistaken idea. There was at first a departure from a few things, and only

a few. But by a little at a time it developed into that awful fallacy of a hierarchy which has spread its baneful influence through the centuries and around the world!

We are exhorted to contend for the faith as it was delivered in its original simplicity and purity. Our enemies at the present day, no less than in former times, are very strong. We contend against mighty influences. There are those to-day, as in olden times, who would take away our faith. Some seek to discard the miracles of the Bible. Others would throw out the Pentateuch. Others still would take away the epistles and cut our Book of faith into small fragments, and then take the inspiration out of what is left.

We do not need a “new religion,” but we do need a new emphasis on the old religion once for all delivered unto the saints. We need to contend with superhuman strength against the errors which have stealthily crept in, and which would despoil the immaculate truths which have so sublimely blessed twenty centuries of the world’s polluted history. Here is our struggle. Ours is a supreme contest. Let us contend for the divinely inbreathed Word of God as it was delivered unto us. The Bible is not part God’s Word and part man’s word. It is every bit God’s Word. Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Christ was God in the flesh. He was Deity incarnate. He was not a mere manifestation of God. He was God. He was every bit God clothed in human flesh and subjected to human limitations. . . . He dwelt among us full of grace and truth. Let us earnestly contend for this cardinal fact. The Bible is indited by the Holy Spirit. It is faultless, superhuman, and divine. It is God’s Testament and man’s only guide to the truth as it is in Jesus.

When we come to consider the numerous forces of atheism which are allied against God and his work, we can understand the meaning of the Saviour’s question: “When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” Faith will exist, but not in the hearts of the great multitude. It will be confined to the small majority who in the midst of the dangers on every side have made God their trust, and his Word their guide; but the end of all the conflict will show that faith in God and his truth was not misplaced.