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©FOUNDATION
A MAGAZINE OF BIBLICAL FUNDAMENTALISM
Dennis W. Costella, Editor; Karel Beyer, Production Manager; Matt
Costella,
Copy Editor
M.H. Reynolds, Jr. (1919-1997), Founding Editor
Our Saviour's Regard for Scripture
By Dr. James H.
Brookes (1830-1897)
FOUNDATION Magazine, Jan-Feb
1995
AT
THE BEGINNING of our Lord's public ministry it is
said that "..Jesus, when He was baptized went up straightway out of the water,
and lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a
dove, and lighting upon Him." The next record tells us: "Then was
Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil. " The
three-fold temptation was calmly met, not by argument, not by a dazzling display of His
divine majesty, but by quoting Scripture. Three times He said, "It is
written," and each time He quoted from Deuteronomy, as if he foresaw the
shameful charges brought against the authenticity and genuineness of that book by the
audacious assaults of Higher Criticism, Matthew 4:1-11.
"Think not that I am come to destroy the law,
or the prophets. I am come not to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till
heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all
be fulfilled," Matthew 5:17, 18. A jot is the smallest Hebrew letter,
something like our English comma, and a tittle is the least turn or twist of a Hebrew
letter. So the smallest word, and parts of a word, in Scripture, are exalted to the high
place of divine and immutable authority assigned to His own words, "Heaven and
earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away," Matthew 24:35.
"Why do ye also transgress the commandment of
God by your tradition? For God commanded, saying, Honor thy father and mother," Matthew
15:3, 4. It was God who commanded, and not Moses, and according to the testimony of Moses,
"... the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God,
graven upon the tables," Exodus 32:16.
To the Sadducees our Saviour said, "Ye do err,
not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God ... As touching the resurrection
of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am
the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the
dead, but of the living," Matthew 22:29-32. He tells us that it was God who
spoke, although Moses wrote the narrative; and He makes the argument turn upon the
difference between the past and the present tense of the verb to be, "I AM the
God of Abraham," not was the God.
THE INSPIRED WRITER
"For David himself said by the Holy Ghost, the
Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy
footstool," Mark 12:36. How did David say it? By the Holy Ghost; and not only
did David write the Psalm, contrary to the opinion of the Higher Critics, but he was
verbally inspired by the Holy Spirit.
"The Scripture cannot be broken,"
John 10:35, not a chapter of it, not a verse of it, not a word of it, not a letter of it;
but it is divine and unchangeable like the being of God, because it is distinct with the
presence of God, who is its author. God has manifested Himself in the incarnate Word whose
humanity is perfect, and the inspired Word, which is also both divine and human, and the
latter is as free from errors and mistakes as the former. "Sanctify them
through thy truth. thy word is truth," John 17:17.
Towards the close of our Lord's ministry He said to Peter,
who defended Him with the sword, "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my
Father, and He shall presently [forthwith, immediately, straightway] give me
more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled?...
But all this was done, that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled,"
Matthew 26:53-56.
He needed only to glance toward heaven, to lift a finger,
to utter a cry for help, in order to escape a horrible death. One angel swept down upon
the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 men in a night. A legion, when full, contained 10,000
soldiers; and more than 120,000 angels stood with poised wings on the battlements of the
skies, ready to hurl Jerusalem and its guilty inhabitants, if permitted, into the Dead
Sea. He could easily have lived; "but how then shall the Scriptures be
fulfilled?"
"Then the soldiers, when they had crucified
Jesus, took His garments and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also His coat.
now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said therefore among
themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose shall it be that the Scripture
might be fulfilled, which saith, they parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture
they did cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did," John 19:23, 24.
Everything our Lord said, and everything connected with Him, was designed to honor the
Scripture.
"After this, Jesus, knowing that all things
were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst," John
19:28. It looks as if, hanging amid the agonies of the cross, He was casting His eyes over
the wide and variegated field of ancient prophecy, and perceiving one little prediction
that remained, He would not consent to bow His head in death, until all that was written
of Him came to pass literally. "I lay down my life, that I might take it
again," He said; but would not lay it down before seeing that the Scripture
was upheld.
Pilate sent soldiers to hasten the death of the victims on
the three crosses, and they brake the legs of the two robbers, but they brake not the legs
of Jesus, for He was already dead. "For these things were done, that the
Scriptures should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken." The
original passage is found in an obscure clause of the narrative concerning the Passover,
Exodus 12:46.
Oh, that all preachers and all believers would learn from
the example of our blessed Lord to reverence the Scripture, knowing that "All
Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for
correction, for instruction in righteousness. That the man of God may be perfect,
throughly furnished unto all good works, "2 Timothy 3:16,17; and that "...the
prophecy came not in old [or at any] time by the will of man: but holy men
of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," 2 Peter 1:2 1.
With renewed zeal for God's Word we would soon see a mighty revival of God's work.
THE WORLD
Three enemies confront us. The first of these is the
world, which often in Scripture means that part of mankind uncontrolled by the love of
Christ, unregenerate because they lack the grace of the Holy Spirit, unrestrained by the
fear of God. Their aims and ambitions, their purposes and plans, their habits and hopes,
all center upon the earthly, temporal and visible. The thought of eternity never enters
their minds except as a dark shadow, to be instantly banished as frightful and repulsive.
Paul could say, "To me to live is Christ," Philippians 1:2 1;
these can as truly say, "To me to live is the world."
The relation of believers to the world is clearly set
forth in the Scripture. Our Lord in His last prayer for His disciples, said to the Father,
"They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world," John
17:16. The Holy Ghost writes, "And be not conformed to this world," Romans
12:2; and again, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
If any may love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the
world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of
the Father, but is of the world," 1 John 2:15, 16.
Such is the tenor of divine revelation from first to last,
but in spite of entreaties, examples and warnings on almost every page, no one can detect
a particle of difference between the great mass of professing Christians and the world, of
which it is said. "The whole world lieth in wickedness," 1 John
5:19. The same methods and principles of doing business, the same "sharp
practices," the same stinginess and love of money, the same absorbing desire for the
increase of possessions, that distinguish men who make no religious profession
characterize those who are members of the church. The same amusements, the same habits of
reading, the same eagerness for fashion, the same slavery to society, prevail largely
among the ladies, whether they are or are not professing Christians. At progressive euchre
tables, theaters, betting on horse races, one class is about as fully represented as the
other.
What can be done to break this accursed spell of
worldliness that has been cast upon the deluded church? "And this is the
victory that overcometh the world, even our faith," 1 John 5:4. Christ must
be seized with the strong and intense grasp of the soul, so that the world may be driven
out, while Christians may learn by earnest prayer and diligent reading of the Word to live
in Him and for Him, saying daily from the heart, "Lord, what wilt thou have me
to do?" Acts 9:6.
THE FLESH
The second of these enemies is the flesh, the nature with
which we are born into this world, of which the apostle writes, "I know that in
me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing.... The carnal mind [of
the flesh] is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither
indeed can be," Romans 7:18; 8:7. "Now the works of the flesh are
manifest, which are these. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like, of which I tell you before, as
I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the
kingdom of God," Galatians 5:19 -2 1. Here is a long, black list; and it is
not said that all men are always guilty of doing all these evil works, but each person, if
he is careful and honest, will find himself described somewhere. There is not only "the
lusts of our flesh," but "fulfilling the desires [or wills] of the
flesh and the mind," Ephesians 2:3. Who has completely controlled his
self-will, so that he never has any other will save that of God?
All that we can do is to go to Christ again. To Christians
it was written, "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for
the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof," Romans 13:14. To Christians it was
written, "This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the
lusts of the flesh," Galatians 4:16. Be clothed with Christ as with a
familiar garment, not nourishing the flesh by your conversation, conduct, habits, reading;
walk in the Spirit, and the flesh will not get the upper hand. But remember, it is there,
and needs to be watched like a slumbering tiger.
THE DEVIL
The third enemy is the devil, not a principle of evil, as
some foolishly say, but a living, active, experienced, malignant, powerful person, called
a "man-murderer" and a "liar," John 8:44; "Satan,"
John 13:27; "the prince of this world," John 16:1 1; "the
god of this world," 2 Corinthians 4:4; "the prince of the power of
the air," Ephesians 2:2; "that old serpent," Revelation
12: 1 0, with vast hosts of demons under his control, so that "we wrestle not
against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of
the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places," Ephesians
6:12. The phrase, "a principle of evil," has no meaning, for really there can be
no such thing. Our Lord and the Holy Ghost constantly speak of the devil as a real,
hateful, terrible person; and it comes perilously nigh to blasphemy to deny his
personality, for it makes the temptations of our Lord Jesus Christ in the wilderness to
arise from the inward solicitations to do evil suggested by His own heart.
Here too we are thrown back upon faith in the mighty Son
of God for deliverance. "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the
devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour; whom resist, stedfast
in the faith," I Peter 5:8, 9. "They overcame him by the blood of
the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony," Revelation 12: 11. Face the
dreadful adversary and foul accuser with the blood of the Lamb, clinging to the faithful
Word, and then you will find how true is the promise, "Resist the devil, and he
will flee from you," James 4:7. Above all, keep Him in view, "who
is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers
being made subject unto Him," 1 Peter 3:22; and is the same precious Lord and
Savior Who has said, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee," Hebrew
13:5. Blessed be His name, the time is coming soon for His glorious appearing, when "the
God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly," feet shortly," Romans 16:20
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