In This Issue:
Why Read It?
If the Bible Is Removed
The Bible
It’s of God
What They Said about the Bible
Volume: 954 April 22, 2024
Theme: The Bible
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Much of man’s history has pivoted around the Bible. Many have spent their lives preserving it for all to read. Thousands upon thousands have been persecuted and even killed for reading, believing, and living by its teachings.
Wars have been waged to stop people from violating commands the Book prohibited, and wars have also been started to halt people from living the way the Bible says to live. People have even printed devious perversions of the Holy Bible and have eliminated teachings they disagree with.
Why all the history involving the Bible? Because it is not just a book! The King James Bible is a perfect copy of the Word of God for English-speaking people (Its root texts are also the basis for Bibles in other major languages)! It comes from a preserved line of copies and translations that have not altered any of its meanings or words since God had first put His words in the hearts and minds of those who penned what He inspired them to write.
People have been changed by living the principles of God’s Word. Lives have been altered from the inside out as they practiced and trusted God’s preserved words. Many have been convicted of its truths and done all they can to forget the haunting reminders of God’s Word.
This precious Book is both loved and hated because it:
- Commands real government. Although the Bible has much to say about people ruling people, the real government encouraged in God’s Word is mostly concerned with who will govern whom. Will man govern himself his way, or will he humble himself and let God direct His life?
- Commands housekeeping. The housekeeping the Bible is concerned with most is cleaning up one’s personal life. Its convicting words put God’s spotlight on the sinful filth one is committing. Once sin is exposed, it is up to the individual to rid oneself of what God warns will ruin one if iniquity is not dealt with and eliminated. Not removing sin when God’s Word exposes it will also make the hearer of the Word responsible for not letting God govern their life.
- Gives godly guidance. The Bible’s advice guides all who obey it through a successful life. God has raised billions of “children.” Our heavenly Father’s advice is always best. It will tell one with whom to befriend, whom to marry, how to work, how to make the right decision, how to raise children, how to live, how to die, how to prepare for eternity, and how to make decisions one will have to make during their lifetime.
- Gives godly protection. God’s advice will protect one from making the same mistakes that have ruined many lives. It warns of dangers that have entrapped so many. God’s advice offers a life of safety, if heeded.
The Bible was and always will be the most important Book to man. It is essential because its principles, when followed, will make a difference to one who is obedient to God’s commands.
Do you read the Bible regularly? Are you obeying its pages’ truths you have already been shown?
The Word of God has been preserved so you and others will know God’s will and way. Is it an important influence in your personal history?
“It is impossible to enslave a Bible-reading people.” — Horace Greeley
This principle is may be why governments are trying hard to ridicule or eliminate God’s Word’s influences in lives!
If the Bible Is Removed
Dr. Payson, Before 1871
Destroy or change the Bible as the enemies of human happiness have vainly endeavored to do, and you render us profoundly ignorant of our Creator. We will not know of the formation of the world we inhabit, of the origin and progenitors of our race, of our present-day and future destination, and consign us through life to the dominion of desire, doubt, and conjecture.
Destroy this volume, and you deprive us of true religion with its consolations, hopes, and prospects which it gives. With its removal, nothing will be left of us but a miserable alternative between the cheerless gloom of infidelity and the monstrous shadows of paganism.
Destroy this volume, and you unpeople Heaven. It will also bar from its entrance descendants of Adam’s race, gives Satan more freedom to cause wreck and havoc, bury hope in the same grave which receives our bodies, and allow us to expect nothing at death but a miserable fate in Hell.
“If more people would read and obey their Bible, liberal preachers would be out of a job, and dead churches would come alive and make a difference in this dark, sinful world.”
The Bible! Hast thou ever heard
Of such a book? The author, God himself;
The subject, God and man, salvation, life
And death — eternal life — eternal death —
Dread words! Whose meaning has no end, no bounds!
Most wondrous book! Bright candle from the Lord!
This book — this Holy Book, on every line
Marked with the seal of high divinity,
On every leaf bedewed with drops of love
Divine; and with the eternal heraldry
And signature of God Almighty stamped
From first to last; this ray of sacred light,
This lamp, from off the everlasting throne,
Mercy took down and in the night of time
Stood, casting on the dark her gracious bow;
And evermore beseeching men, with tears
And earnest sighs to read, believe, and live.
“The Bible is God’s personal letter to you!” — Author Unknown
The Bible must be the invention either of good men or angels, evil men or devils, or of God.
It could not be the invention of good men or angels, for they neither would nor could make such a perfect prophetic, scientific, and historical book. They would also be lying if they did, as all through the Bible it is written, “Thus saith the Lord.”
It could not be the invention of bad men or devils, for they could not and would not make a book that commands all duty, forbids all sin, and condemns their souls to an eternal Hell.
We, therefore, draw this conclusion: the Bible must be given by Divine inspiration!
What They Said about the Bible
“That book accounts for the supremacy of England.” — Queen Victoria
“It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.” — George Washington
“I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to men. All the good from the Saviour of the world is communicated to us through this Book.” — Abraham Lincoln
“That Book, sir, is the rock on which our republic rests.” — Andrew Jackson
That may be why government leaders are trying so hard to muzzle the Bible’s “voice” and influence.
“The Bible is the sheet-anchor (rope on a powerful sail) of our liberties.” — U. S. Grant
“In all my perplexities and distresses, the Bible has never failed to give me light and strength.” — Robert E. Lee
“I have made it a practice to read the Bible through every year. The earlier my children begin to read it, the more confident will be my hope that they will prove to be useful citizens to their country and be respectable members of society.” — John Quincy Adams
“The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.” Isaiah 40:8