By far the most influential book in the world is the Bible. Do you know of, can you think of, any other book which has the honor of having an incorporated society wholly devoted to fighting it, like the Anti-Bible Society? No other book has such acknowledged power. None other is so feared, none so hated. Do you know of any other book that is gathered up and publicly burned? Why? Because those who thus do so fear and hate it. Why? Because of its power. It has a strange power to change people. When any come under its peculiar influence they are changed, and always for the better.
Thieves influenced by it become honest; drunkards become sober; those who yield their lives to its guidance and power become moral, patient, humble, kind. Men and women devote their lives to taking it into the dark places of the earth, among savage peoples, and it changes individuals, families, tribes and nations.
Because of this, thousands of people devote their lives to the making and distributing Bibles and portions of the Book to every part of the earth. It is translated into hundreds of languages and dialects, a number of which were first reduced from spoken to written and printed forms that Bibles and parts of the Bible might be put into a form that could be read. To finance this great work collections of money are taken up, placed in charge of organized societies, and millions of copies are printed and distributed annually. Then other millions of Bibles and portions are made by houses devoted to publishing Bibles and Testaments to sell. Search the world over and there cannot be found another instance of this kind. Millions of books printed and both given and sold by societies in every part of the world; the same books issued by private publishers, and sold at a profit which sustains the business.
But there is some power back of all this. No such mighty work could be carried on in the face of the opposition which it has, were there not some mighty power back of and within it. There is a strange and mysterious force animating the Bible which makes it a LIVING BOOK. The Bible treats mainly of one Person, Jesus Christ. The four Gospels standing at the beginning of the New Testament are taken up with four views of the life of this Person here on earth. Only about three years of His life are presented, and they very briefly, but nothing ever took place here on the earth which more profoundly affected all its inhabitants than the life and death of Christ. His life was the most momentous life ever lived; His death had vastly more effect upon mankind than any other that ever occurred, and He has more authority over man today than any other being. Men do not acknowledge this authority, do not know it, but the only explanation of the position and influence of the Bible is that it is the written Word of the living Christ. They who know most of the Bible know the most of Christ, and they who reject the Bible reject its Christ.
It is the authority of Christ which men reject and resist, yet by their acts they are constantly proclaiming their need of just such authority. What subject is occupying the minds and thoughts of the greatest number of people at present? Government. And because government must be exercised by men, the subject of Rulers comes next. The government and those who shall govern have a very large place in the minds and thoughts of people, for the happiness and well-being of the people depend largely upon the course of the governing power. Ever since the beginning of history men have been trying to devise a really good government, and judging by the conditions which generally prevail, they are no nearer their goal, or are further from it than ever. The experience of mankind through the ages proclaims that no man has been or can be found fit and capable of governing perfectly any nation, much less the whole earth.
No man ever spoke with such authority as Christ. He never in any way intimated that any created being was greater than Himself. He claimed all authority both in heaven and in earth, and He never said or did anything whatever to lessen the greatness of that claim. The Bible contains the best rules for the administration of government ever propounded. Christ's own statements as to the best path for a ruler to tread are clear, simple and comprehensive. They are summed up in the words, Rule is service (Matt. 20:25-28). The knowledge that Christ has such power, and that He may use it at any time, with man's natural enmity to God, combine to cause men to fear and hate Christ. He has asserted again and again that He is not only the rightful Ruler but also the Judge of all mankind; that He has authority to punish the guilty and to forgive and fully clear those repenting and believing His Word.
People know they must die, and in spite of doubt and unbelief, there is an instinctive fear of judgment after. They know in their hearts that One who was so far above all other men in every good quality, who proved His power and goodness in so many ways, has power to judge and punish, and will use that power. They see the most terrible crimes going unpunished in this world, and they are made to realize that there must be in the world to come a Power to punish. Punishments administered by men are inadequate and unsatisfactory. To punish properly, the motives and purposes of the criminal must be known, that inner life which no man can know, but the perfect knowledge of which Scripture claims for Christ:see Psalm 139, John 2:25; 6:61, 64. All through the Gospels it is made plain that Christ knew the thoughts and hearts of men. So in the Old Testament the same power is ascribed to Him as JEHOVAH.
Both reason and the sense of the fitness of things call for judgment and retribution in the future world. Men have invented every kind of doctrine to escape or minimize this. But neither Christ nor Scripture do so, and here is where men have their greatest quarrel with the Bible and Christ. There is no teaching more generally hated in civilized lands than that of future punishment. This hatred is steadily growing, because the people are lapsing into pagan darkness. This is the darkness of man "without God in the world" (Eph. 2:12). Its teachings suit the times, and prove the prophetic statements of Scripture. Men will be atheists as long as they can, but when God makes Himself known in His judgments, then they will fight against Him.
But take away from people all that they leave behind when they die, and that would be hell for them. They have no treasure laid up in heaven; all that gives them any enjoyment is left for ever. To escape from this men have invented the doctrine of annihilation. They quiet conscience by trying to believe that death is extinction, that after death there is nothing left of man to punish, or to suffer. Yet we go into museums and see the embalmed bodies of persons who lived centuries ago, who may have looked upon Moses and seen the Exodus of Israel. If the body can last thus by human means, can not the spirit be made to last for ages by the Power which created it? It is far greater to create than to preserve; the One who created can certainly preserve. He has made man, body, soul, and spirit. He is able to destroy both body and soul, but there it is never said that He destroys the spirit; there is no intimation or hint of such a thing.
If man can preserve a body which he cannot make, surely God can preserve the spirit which He did make. Unbelief has tried in every way to get rid of anything but what is material, but by no stretch of materialistic thought can the vast gulf between life and death be removed. A living being has something which the dead have not. And life is vastly more than the interplay of mechanical atoms. In an embryo it works so as to make all the wonderful parts of a living creature. The greatest unbeliever has to admit that life calls for a Creator, for no man ever yet has produced life from lifeless matter. All created life had a beginning. Paul's address to the pagans of Athens puts the truth in the best form for the pagans of today:
"God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is served by men's hands, as though He needed anything, seeing He giveth to all life and breath and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, 'For we are also His offspring.' Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Being is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. The times of this ignorance God overlooked; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent:because He hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men in that He hath raised Him from the dead" (Acts 17:24-31).
Those Athenians had no New Testament to testify against them, as the modern pagans have, but they rejected Paul because he taught the resurrection of the dead, and modern pagans reject whatever teaches it. Men hate what interferes with their pleasure, the indulgence of their passions and appetites. They are in the power of these evil forces. Many a man and woman knows they are going "straight to hell," yet find in themselves no power to make a change. What they can do is to repent; be sorry for their sin, turn from it to One who does have power to save them from sin, self and all the forces of evil.
Millions of sinners, as great as any that can be found on earth today, have been saved by the salvation of God wrought by Christ. He has power to save, to forgive, to blot out the past, to give a new nature, to deliver from hell. Christ is the Saviour and He is the Judge. If any go to hell it is because they either have rejected the salvation of God, or because they would have rejected it had it been offered to them. Their great objection to judgment is the heathen. They never heard the Gospel; why punish them? Romans 1:18-32 answers. It shows the heathen as "without excuse." God has shown every human being all that he needs to know for salvation. No one will be able to rise up in the judgment and say he did not have a fair chance, "because that which is known of God is manifest among them; for God hath showed it to them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and divinity; so that they are without excuse." Read Rom. 1:19-21, and you will find the reason why.
But if those who have lived in heathen lands are without excuse, what of those who have lived where the Bible and the Gospel are in reach of every person? What excuse will the millions have who deliberately reject all the light and knowledge of God which is offered them? What excuse will those other millions have who have Bibles in their homes, and imagine that they can escape hell by joining a church, or worshiping God with their hands on Sunday, and then living as of the world the rest of the time?
"God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth Him and WORKETH righteousness is accepted with Him" (Acts 10:34). And, of course, those who do not fear Him and do not work righteousness are not accepted with him. God speaks to every person, offering them His salvation, and those who are judged after death are rejected because they rejected the salvation of God. People are lost "because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved" (2 Thess. 2:10). "This is the judgment, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be manifest that they are wrought in God" (John 3:19-21).
To the Philippian jailer's agonized enquiry, "What must I do to be saved?" there was one brief answer which meets the need of every one who asks that question, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved and thy house" (Acts 16:30, 31). "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn [judge] the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on Him is not condemned [judged]; but he that believeth not is condemned [judged] already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God" (John 3:16-18).
These Scriptures place before us God's truth concerning sin, salvation, and how to be saved. They show that, while all are lost, all may be saved; that Christ, God's Son, is the only Saviour; and that the one way sinners are linked up with Him for salvation is by simply believing in Him as an all-sufficient Saviour. God offers salvation from sin, from hell, to every one born of woman; no matter how great a sinner; no matter whether old or young, high or low, rich or poor. The only need is to know we are sinners, that we desire to be saved. The only thing to do is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. This is God's way, the only way to be saved from judgment and after. J. W. Newton