that the Bible is God's Word, and is to be taken at its face value in spite of all the attempts that men, who "counting themselves wise, have become fools," make to explain it away. II. GOD IS A PERSON The next thing that the Bible teaches about God is that _God is a person_. That is to say He is a being who knows, feels, loves, hears prayer, speaks, acts, a being who acts intelligently upon us and upon whom we can act. While God is in all things, He is a personality distinct from the persons and things in which He is, which He has created. The Bible, both in the Old and New Testaments is full of this vital conception of "a _living_ God" as distinguished from the mere cold abstraction of "The Absolute," or "The Infinite," or "The Supreme Being," or "The Great First Cause" of which "Modern Philosophy" loves to prate. For example, we read in Jer. 10:10-16: +"But Jehovah is the true God; he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth trembleth, and the nations are not able to abide his indignation. (11) Thus shall ye say unto them, the gods that have not made the heaven and the earth, these shall perish from the earth, and from under the heavens. (12) He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding hath he stretched out the heavens. (13) When he uttereth his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings for the rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasuries. (14) Every man is become brutish and is without knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his graven image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them. (15) They are vanity, a work of delusion; in the time of their visitation they shall perish. (16) The portion of Jacob is not like these; for he is the former of all things; and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance: Jehovah of hosts is his name."+ In this passage God is distinguished from idols which are things and not persons, things which "speak not" "cannot act," "cannot do good neither is it in them to do evil"; and we are told that Jehovah is _wiser_ than "all the wise men." Is "the living God," "an everlasting King," a being who hath "wrath and indignation," separate from His creatures—"at His wrath the earth trembleth and the nations are not able to abide His indignation." In Acts 14:15 we read: +"Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and bring you good tidings, that ye should turn from these things unto the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea, and all that in them is."+ Here also we have the representation of _God as a personal being distinct from His created work_, and also to be clearly distinguished from the idols which are not living gods. In 1 Thess. 1:9, the converts at Thessalonica are represented as turning from dead gods, "idols, to serve the _living_ and true God."