This is not a fancy picture. In days of old Bibles were few, and oftentimes chained in the church. Now the book is ubiquitous, but its truth is often held down in unrighteousness. Rom. 1:18.
HERE is a strong tendency on the part of many at the present time to do away with the Bible as an authority in matters of morals and religion. In its stead they would set up man's reason and his ideas. This leaves no fixed standard, but mere approximations to right and wrong, varying with the age and the individual; each man becomes a law unto himself. The whole thing is an inconsistent process, unlike anything we do in other lines of thought and endeavor.
Necessities of Standards
In the mere matter of building a house, we have standards by which to square it and set it firm and true; with compass and plumb-line the structure is set square with the four great cardinal points of direction, and true with the great down pull of gravity. Our land is measured and marked in accordance with fixed and acknowledged standards.
A navigator sailing the great broad seas, must know at times exactly where he is; otherwise he may be carried out of his course by wind or tide, and be wrecked on reefs or rocks. Great fixed standards are needed by which to make such measurements. Thus he is able to sail for hundreds of miles across the trackless waste, and hit an island only a few miles in width.
For the closest calculations, an exact standard of time is imperative. For this purpose, every government of note keeps absolutely accurate time, by employing the finest piece of clockwork possible to devise, and by standardizing its correctness through observations made of the sun, moon, and stars. The navigator has a standardized clock called a chronometer, and he takes his course for weeks, changes his time of reckoning daily, and comes into the destined port at length exactly on time.
And thus in every line of human activity; standards are necessary at every hand. Consequently there are standards of weight, standards of money, standards of pronunciation and punctuation, of spelling and writing; there are standards in education; standards in music; standards in art; standards in every line of human activity until we come to the sphere of religion. And altho' morality is of infinite importance, and therefore more important than all things else, we are to have in it no exact or fixed standard!
If it is important for a man to know that his house stands properly facing the street, and that it is located on his own lot and not partly on another's, then it is also important for him to know which way his soul is facing, and to know exactly where he is in the government of God. If it is a matter of great importance for a man to know that his house stands exactly plumb with the force of gravity in order that it may exactly balance on its foundations and follow the lines of symmetry, then it is also of even greater importance to him to know that his life is built plumb with the great law of eternal uprightness, stands immovable as the mountains, and has the symmetry of the god-like character. If the navigator can not sail the seas without the compass and the sextant, the first to tell him direction and the second to tell him position, then by as much or more he can not, simply can not go through life and reach the blessed haven trusting to luck and a guess; he must have the Word for his position, and the Spirit operating in and through the Word for his direction.
Where Most Needed
If we need standards anywhere in this world, we need them in the realm of the soul. Buildings are not so important as character. The direction of ships is not so important as the destiny of souls. To know that your landmarks agree with the government surveys, is not so important as to know that your life agrees with the great law of the government of God. Above all things, we must have a standard in the realm of the spiritual.
And the Bible confessedly is that standard. Take away this Word, and absolutely there is no fixed standard left; there is no plumb-line for the soul, no measuring-rod for true attainment, no compass for direction, no sextant, true as the sun, to tell our whereabouts; in a dismal fog, drifting with wind and tide, driven with wind and storm, the ship of life moves, going no one knows whither, lost no one knows where.
How important, then, are the Holy Scriptures, because they set for us an absolute standard of right and wrong. “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Isa. 8:20. Thus and thus only can we know the truth of any doctrine.
If a man sets himself up as a scientist and a teacher of science, his utterances are at once tested by the great accepted standards of science; if he speaks not in accord with them, he is decried. The great standards of science are the facts of nature: if he speaks not in accord with these, there is no light in his teachings. So when one comes as a teacher of religion or morals, he is to be tested at once by the great Book of God; if he speaks not in accordance with the Book, there is error in his teaching.
Untested Beliefs
And yet, with all the warnings in God's Word against false teaching, it is more than passing strange that so many persons are ready, so ready, to commit the keeping of their souls to the clergy. There are countless thousands to-day who do not know why they hold their present points of doctrine, save that they were so instructed by their religious teachers. They have never carefully tested these doctrines by a close study of the Scriptures. Ministers are not infallible; and the best that any of them should hope to do, is to point souls to the Word. If they fail in this, they fail in everything. They must speak in accordance with the Word, or there is no light in them.
“Preach the Word,” is the admonition of the Lord through the apostle Paul. No minister has any right or authority to offer to any soul anything but a “Thus saith the Lord.” And every person should demand of those who seek to guide him religiously, a plain declaration of duty from the sacred Scriptures. If they speak not according to the Word of God, there is no light in them.
Suppose you wish to take up the study of Latin or algebra, how soon you would question the ability or integrity of your4teacher if you often found him at variance with the text-book! Just as certainly should you question the ability or integrity of the man who teaches at variance with the divine Text-book.
Remember what the Saviour said: “In vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Matt. 15:9. It was the Jewish explanations of the Scriptures to which He referred. They had made the Bible of none effect through their traditions. Matt. 15:6. So it is false teaching and interpretation that is doing away with the real Word of God to-day.
Ignorance and Knowledge
The Jews had a wealth of Scripture knowledge, but it was misinterpreted and misunderstood. So to-day there are millions of Bibles; they are dropping from the presses every day by the thousands; but even so there is as deep, dark ignorance of its real teachings with many to-day, as there was in the awful Dark Ages when the Bible all but disappeared from the world.
Study your Bible with prayer. It was inspired by the Holy Spirit and it is promised as a guide to lead you into all the truth. Follow its guidance, tho it rebuke cherished sins and lead in ways that are new and strange. Know whereof it speaks. You can not afford to make mistakes. To be wrong in the affairs of this life may mean the loss of money or property or even life; but to be wrong in this matter of character is the loss of the soul itself. “What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
