Blasting at the Rock of Ages
By Le Roy E. Froom
Open Infidelity Has Sought to Break Down the Word—
A Disguised Infidelity Is Trying It To-Day
BIBLE study and Bible preaching are fast dying out of the world. Art, literature, oratory, ethics, politics, "social service," "civic reform,"—anything, everything,—has taken the place of the old-fashioned Bible. Such is the condition in the home, and congregations demand that kind of sermons. Against all this the apostle Paul utters his warning to the ministry, "Preach the Word." And the Master urges all men everywhere to "search the Scriptures." There is life and power in that Word. It is the eternal Rock of Ages. Down through the centuries, men have been blasting away at it, but it seems to have thrived under the hard treatment. That is a wonderful story of how the Bible has come to us through those years. Like a great anvil, it stands unworn and unmoved, while the hammers of hatred are battered and worn. Destroy the Bible! One might as well talk of blotting the sun out of the sky. Yet men will try it. The infidel Voltaire said, "In one hundred years there will not be a copy of the Bible on earth." Voltaire is dead—but the Book lives on. A hundred years have passed, and the Bible is going to the world at the rate of over six million copies a year, printed in more than five hundred and fifty distinct forms of human speech. And the very printing-press that scattered Voltaire's false prophecy was later used by the Geneva Bible Society to print God's holy word. In those years that are past, rank and open infidelity sought to bring God's book into contempt. To-day infidelity has taken on a more insidious and refined form. In the church it is called higher criticism, and in the university it is called science. With the air of advanced learning, a campaign of doubt is fast encircling the globe. The leaders in this movement are entrenched in the pulpit, the press, the university, and even the theological seminary. They demand a revision of belief regarding the Sacred Writings, rejecting this, cutting off that, ridiculing another passage, until among them all there is nothing left of it. Are we to accept the Bible as you would a fish, picking out the bones before swallowing it? Is it the word of God, or is it not? The prevailing movements of the day are subtle infidelity. Truly the time has come, predicted by Paul, "when they will not endure sound doctrine," but will "heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears." 2 Tim. 4: 3, 4. Do we not know the baneful results of forsaking the Bible during the Dark Ages? Do we not see the forward strides made during the Reformation? They were made because men turned again to the word of God. I plead with you to study God's living word. Study it as His message to you; not to prove a pre-adopted creed; not for ammunition to argue with; not with father's spectacles, to see it just as father saw; but as the message of the living God. Its precepts are binding. Its histories are true. Each time the pick and shovel of the explorer unearth a new record, the evidence increases. From the dust of the dead and buried past march forth mute witnesses to the truth of the Word. May it accomplish its divine mission in each one of us!