"The Bible is surely a divine book..."Dear Christian Friend, The Bible is surely a Divine book. It has most interesting dramatic stories, and all are true. It has matchless poetry, ancient history, psychology, and studies on human nature. Also, it has theology, the only fount for Truth and true religion. It is far beyond anything man could produce. It is the Word of God. But even as Jesus was both human and divine, as He was the "Word made flesh", so the written Word is human and divine. There may be the marks of individual writers and include some errors of details, dates, or limitations of human word to convey infinite matters. Also, errors in copiers through the centuries and translators may appear. In spite of this, the spiritual message is the Divine Word of God. You have heard some preachers say we should not admit to any kind of error in the Bible no matter how unimportant, lest it then cast doubts of it being the Word of God. A more spiritual outlook is evidently the way God intends. He did away with the Old Law of legalisms, keeping what those laws were meant to teach, the spiritual principles. St. Paul explains repeatedly and expounds on its importance. The literal legalists can be all mixed up making what in the Bible is allegorical and not literal, thus losing its truth, which is the spiritual message to be learned. The extreme literalist plays into the hand of the atheistic scientists. When his son goes to college and is shown the provable absurdity of some of their claims, he is apt to lose his faith also. When the believers stay away from too explicit a picture of creation, we are free then to say, "Does science show the world and the sun to be millions of years old?" Why, of course. Our God is infinitely old. He has thrown whole galaxies of stars into an almost infinitude of space uncounted years ago. The stars and their planets are growing and changing and dying. It evolves? God can create, and He sets evolutionary laws into motion. It is inspiring to study science and see the greatness of the handiwork of our God, even as it was shown to Job, Moses, David, and others. God used an evolutionary plan to give His Bible truths to man, revealing some to the patriarchs during their dispensation for some two thousand years, or a little more. Then He made some changes and additions, bringing in the Dispensation of the Law for about two thousand years, or a little less. Then, and only then, bringing in the Dispensation of Grace. When the scientific investigations show the evolutionary connection between animals, so what! We do not let an atheist's claims that substantiate anything for him bother us. We answer, "Of course, God uses some evolutionary principles. He invented them. He guides and controls in most marvellous, wonderful ways." Then we point out that there are many, many glaring gaps and flaws in the atheist's evolutionist plan, the multiple instances where a Divine mind created a condition, an instinct, or a bounteous gift way beyond the usual evolutionary plan to explain. The key foundation stone of the atheistic evolutionary theory is that all can be explained by the Law of Chance, by probability. It is a glaring weakness and untrue. A creator with an infinite, divine planning intelligence is a scientific and mathematical necessity to explain the known world and the starry universe. My main thought here is that God also has an infinite plan, broad, high, and spiritually deep for His children and for His bride. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the imaginations or mind of man to begin to see or understand what God hath prepared for those who love Him. There is no end to the depth of understanding the Bible truths and revelations one may come to if he loves God and His Word. David was a type of Christ. One would like a type to be somewhat better, more perfect, but these types show the Bible student one side or facet of the true thing, and may be defective in many other areas, as David proved. Joseph had a personal history that was prophetical of Christ. Isaac, on Abraham's altar, was another precious type. The failures of some of those people are put in the Bible also, for their value in teaching us. David had a thought of building God a Tabernacle. God sent word that He had other plans. David had followed God's orders in going to battle and fighting the enemies of God. Now, because David had been a man of war, some other person was to build the Tabernacle (or Temple). This is one more example of instruction to us about Salvation. The first work of Grace, Justification, is a wonderful miracle and necessary, but a young Christian soon finds that with all the new joy there is still a war going on, and much of the war is in one's heart. There are old habits, temptations, and also ignorance of so much in the new life. Also, there is a limited experience in how to see the devil defeated, but he fights on, growing in faith, strength and experience. If he is faithful and does not get discouraged, he can come to a deeper experience. Hebrews calls it "coming into that rest". So it was with the Israelites. Slaying the Passover Lamb and leaving Egypt was a type of Justification. Their being in a desert, but fed of God, is a type of the young new Christian. The entering into the Promised Land, crossing Jordan, shows God wants us all both to grow, to have climactic victories, and to enter into our deeper walk with God. The man of war gives way to the Prince of Peace. A time of obeying rules, even good church rules, are superseded by the importance of Love and Grace. As the writer to the Hebrews also says,
may God make you perfect, to do His will, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
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