Chapter 3
Chapter 3
There is another class of people that only wants to believe part of the Bible. It is quite popular for people to say, “Yes, I believe the Bible, but not the supernatural parts. I believe everything based upon reason.” They go on reading the Bible with a pocketknife, cutting out this and that. Now, if I have a right to cut out a certain portion of the Bible, I don’t know why one of my friends has not a right to cut out another, and another friend to cut out another part, and so on. You would have a strange kind of Bible if everybody cut out what he wanted to. Every adulterer would cut out everything about adultery; every liar would cut out everything about lying; every drunkard would be cutting out what he didn’t like.
You invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you: This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men. (Matthew 15:6-9)
A gentleman once took his Bible to his minister and said, “This is your Bible.”
“Why do you call it my Bible?” asked the minister.
“Well,” replied the gentleman, “I have been sitting under your preaching for five years, and whenever you said that something in the Bible was not true, I cut it out.” He had about a third of the Bible cut out: all of Job, all of Ecclesiastes and Revelation, and a good deal more. The minister wanted him to leave the Bible with him; he didn’t want the rest of his congregation to see it. But the man said, “Oh no! I still have the covers left, and I will hold on to them.” And off he went, holding on to the covers.
If you believed what some men preach, you would have nothing but the covers left in a few months. I have often said that if I am going to throw away the Bible, I will throw it all into the fire at once. There is no need of waiting five years to do what you can do just as well at once. I have yet to find a man who begins to pick at the Bible who does not pick it all to pieces in a little while.
I met a minister a while ago who said to me, “Moody, I have given up preaching except out of the four Gospels. I no longer preach from the New Testament Epistles or any of the Old Testament; I don’t know why I cannot just go to the source and preach as Paul did. I believe the Gospels are all there is that is authentic.” It was not long before he gave up the four Gospels too, and finally gave up the ministry. He gave up the Bible, and God gave him up.
Every word of God is tested. (Proverbs 30:5)
A prophet who had been sent to a city to warn the wicked was commanded not to eat meat within the city’s walls. He was afterwards deceived into doing so by an old prophet, who told him that an angel had come to him and told him that he could return and eat with him. That prophet was destroyed by a lion for his disobedience (1 Kings 13). If an angel should come and tell a different story from that in the Book, don’t believe it. I am sick and tired of people following men. It is written: But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed (Galatians 1:8). Do you think that we can disobey God’s Word with impunity when we have more light before us than that prophet had?
But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it. See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity; in that I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the LORD your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it. But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it. (Deuteronomy 30:14-18)
It is a most absurd statement for someone to say he will have nothing to do with the miracles and will not believe the supernatural. If you are going to reject the supernatural, you might as well burn your Bibles at once. If you take the supernatural out of that Book, you have taken Jesus Christ out of it; you have taken out the best part of the Book. There is no part of the Bible that does not teach supernatural things. In Genesis it says that Abraham fell on his face and God talked with him. That is supernatural. If that did not take place, then the man who wrote Genesis wrote a lie, and out goes Genesis. In Exodus you find the ten plagues which came upon Egypt. If that is not true, then the writer of Exodus was a liar. Then in Leviticus it is said that fire consumed the two sons of Aaron. That was a supernatural event, and if that was not true, then we must throw out the whole Book.
Then the LORD said to Moses, Say to Aaron, Stretch out your staff and strike the dust of the earth, that it may become gnats through all the land of Egypt. They did so; and Aaron stretched out his hand with his staff, and struck the dust of the earth, and there were gnats on man and beast. All the dust of the earth became gnats through all the land of Egypt. The magicians tried with their secret arts to bring forth gnats, but they could not; so there were gnats on man and beast. Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, This is the finger of God. (Exodus 8:16-19a)
In Numbers is the story of the bronze serpent. And so with every book in the Old Testament; there is not one in which you do not find something supernatural. The Gospels contain more supernatural things than any other portion of the Bible, and the last thing a man is willing to give up is the four Gospels, about Jesus Christ. Five hundred years before His birth, the angel Gabriel came down and told Daniel that He would be born: While I was still speaking in prayer, then the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision previously, came to me in my extreme weariness about the time of the evening offering (Daniel 9:21). Again, Gabriel came down to Nazareth and told the virgin Mary that she would be the mother of the Savior. The angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus (Luke 1:30-31).
We find too that the angel went into the temple and told Zacharias that he was to be the father of John the Baptist, the forerunner of the Messiah; Zacharias was struck mute for nine months because of his unbelief (Luke 1:5-25). Then when Christ was born, we find angels appearing to the shepherds at Bethlehem, telling them of the birth of the Savior: But the angel said to them, Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord (Luke 2:10-11).
The wise men seeing the star in the east and following it was surely supernatural (Matthew 2:1-12). So was the warning that God sent to Joseph in a dream, telling him to flee to Egypt (Matthew 2:13). So was the fact of our Lord going into the temple at the age of twelve, discussing with the scholars, and being a match for them all (Luke 2:46-49). So were the circumstances regarding His baptism, when God spoke from heaven.
After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him, and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased. (Matthew 3:16-17)
For three and a half years, Jesus trod the streets and highways of Israel. Think of the many wonderful miracles that He performed during those years. One day He spoke to the leper, and the leper was made whole. Another day He spoke to the sea, and it obeyed Him. When He died, the sun refused to look upon the scene; this old world recognized Him and reeled and rocked like a drunken man. When He broke open the bands of death and came out of Joseph’s sepulchre, that was supernatural.
In his sermon “The Time of Reformation,” Christmas Evans, the great Welsh preacher, said, “Many reformations have expired with the reformers. But our Great Reformer ‘ever liveth’ to carry on His reformation, till His enemies become His footstool, and death and hell are cast into the lake of fire.” Thank God we do not worship a dead Jew. If we worshipped a dead Jew, we would not have been made alive and received life in our souls. I thank God that our Christ is a supernatural Christ and that this Book is a supernatural Book; and I thank God that I live in a country where it is so free that all people can read it.
Some people think we are deluded, that this is imagination. Well, it is a glorious imagination, is it not? It has lasted between thirty and forty years with me, and I think it is going to last while I am still living and continue on when I go into another world.
When Paul wrote to Timothy that all Scripture was given by inspiration of God and was profitable (2 Timothy 3:16), he meant what he said. “Well,” some say, “do you believe all Scripture is given by inspiration?” Yes, every word of it; but I don’t believe all the actions and incidents it tells of were inspired. For instance, when the Devil told a lie, he was not inspired to tell a lie, and when a wicked man like Ahab said anything, he was not inspired; but someone was inspired to write it, and so all was given by inspiration and is profitable.
Inspiration must have been verbal in many, if not in all, cases. Regarding salvation through the sufferings of Christ, Peter tells us:
As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven -things into which angels long to look. (1 Peter 1:10-12)
The prophets themselves had to inquire and search diligently regarding the words they uttered under the inspiration of the Spirit.
A man said to a young convert, “How can you prove that the Bible is inspired?”
He replied, “Because it inspires me.”
I think that is pretty good proof. Let the Word of God into your soul, and it will inspire you; it cannot help it.
Is not My word like fire? declares the LORD, and like a hammer which shatters a rock? (Jeremiah 23:29)