The Bible - Part Three

THE BIBLE - Part Three

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The Bible is a supernatural Book. No other book was ever given by God. No other book contains any of Gods unveiling and God never breathed upon any other men than those who wrote the Bible, to keep them from error in their work.

The Bible is the story of Man's Complete Ruin in Sin and God's Perfect Remedy in Christ. You might call that, all of the Bible in ten words. Memorize those ten words, for there is nothing in the Bible that does not have to do with one of those two phrases.

 

The reason that some men hate the Bible is because it shows them what their heart really is, and wounds their pride beyond cure. There is a story about a girl who was very ugly, so ugly that she never wanted to look at herself in a mirror. She hated the sight of a mirror, and would not have one in her room. We know, of course, that her hatred of mirrors did not make her any more beautiful. Another little girl thought herself to be so pretty that she looked in a mirror every chance she had and turned her head one way and another in order to see herself better. It was only when she read her Bible that she found that God was not pleased with her heart any more than He was pleased with the heart of an ugly girl.

 

A little boy in the South of France went into the kitchen one day as his mother was putting away some glasses of jam that had just been made. She had to go out on an errand and told the little boy that he must not go near the jam. While she was gone he got a chair and went to the cupboard, dipped his finger in each of the glasses and licked it each time. Suddenly he heard his mother coming back. He closed the cupboard, put the chair in its place, and went into the next room. His mother called him to her and asked him why he had disobeyed her. He lied to her and told her that he had not touched the jam. She looked at him steadily. He had been looking her straight in the eye. He then began looking at her mouth, then at the buttons on her dress, then at her belt buckle, then at her shoes. Then he looked down at his own shoes, and, as his head got lower and lower, he suddenly saw the reason why his mother had been so sure of what he had been doing while she was out. On his coat was a big spot of jamThis is just what the Bible does for man. It shows him the spot that is within his breast; it reveals to him that he has a sinful heart.

 

He would never have known it unless God had given the Bible. Paul says that he would never have known what sin was except for the fact that God gave the law. He would not have known that it was wrong to desire wrong things if God had not said, Thou shalt not covet (Romans 7:7).

 

It is the Bible that tells us that our good deeds cannot please God because He is holy and we are sinners. It is the Bible that tells us that our character cannot save us. It is the Bible that tells us that we are not saved by works lest any man should boast (Ephesians 2:9). These are not things that men would think out for themselves, and most unbelievers hope that they can be saved by what they do, though God says they cannot.

 

When God, the Holy Spirit, saves someone, He does it always the same way. He takes some verse in the Bible about God's holiness or some verse in the Bible about how terrible sin really is. Then he uses this to stir up the unbelievers heart so that he is convicted of his sin, of God's righteousness and of the judgment of God against sin (John 16:8). Then when the unbeliever knows what God thinks about his sin, God reveals to him, and always through the Bible, that He, God, is perfectly satisfied with the death of Jesus Christ instead of the death of the sinner.

 

What the brush is to the artist in painting a picture, what the hammer is to the carpenter in driving a nail, what water is to the laundress in washing clothes, so the Bible is to God in saving a soul.

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