Pleasure & Profit in Bible StudyMoody, Dwight Lyman
Religion
Pleasure & Profit in Bible Study
Moody, Dwight Lyman
Bible -- Study and teaching
There is another class. It is quite fashionable for people to say, "Yes,
I believe the Bible, but not the supernatural. I believe everything that
corresponds with this reason of mine." They go on reading the Bible with
a pen-knife, 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 queer 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. Once, a
gentleman took his Bible around to his minister's and said, "That is
your Bible." "Why do you call it _my_ Bible?" said the minister. "Well,"
replied the gentleman, "I have been sitting under your preaching for
five years, and when you said that a thing in the Bible was not
authentic, 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 besides. 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 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 as
well at once. I have yet to find a man who begins to pick at the Bible
that does not pick it all to pieces in a little while. A minister whom I
met awhile ago said to me, "Moody, I have given up preaching except out
of the four Gospels. I have given up all the Epistles, and all the Old
Testament; and I do not know why I cannot go to the fountain head 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, and
finally gave up the ministry. He gave up the Bible, and God gave him up.
A prophet who had been sent to a city to warn the wicked, was commanded
not to eat meat within its walls. He was afterwards deceived into doing
so by an old prophet, who told him that an angel had come to him and
said he might return and eat with him. That prophet was destroyed by a
lion for his disobedience. If an angel should come and tell a different
story from that in the Book, don't believe it. I am tired and sick of
people following men. It is written, "though an angel from heaven preach
any other gospel, let him be accursed." Do you think with more light
before us than the prophet had that we can disobey God's Word with
impunity?
THE SUPERNATURAL IN THE BIBLE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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