The Bible the True Guide.
What are we to say to objections that may be raised to this or that portion of the Old Testament? Are we to close our ears to these objections? The answer to this question must depend in a great measure on the condition of life in which God has been pleased to place us, and upon our own opportunities, attainments, and means of examining these objections thoroughly. The main end for which we have been sent into the world is to serve God, to promote His glory, and to save our souls and the souls of others. St. Paul tells Timothy he had great reason to bless God that from a child he had known the Holy Scriptures, which were the things that were able to make him wise unto salvation, through faith in Christ Jesus, and that "All scripture is given by inspiration of God." St. Paul therefore clearly implies that children may know the Scriptures, and be made wise unto salvation by them, through faith in Christ Jesus, without being troubled and perplexed with any of those objections to which I have referred. It is enough for them to know that Jesus Christ, as the Son of God, received the whole of the Old Testament as the Word of God.
I. If we men are to have true wisdom we also must become as little children; we must approach Divine things in a reverent spirit of love; mysteries are revealed to the meek. How many persons now approach the Bible as the Pharisees approached Jesus Christ, to entangle Him in His talk! They approach the Bible in order to criticise, cavil, and carp at it; they reverse the true order of things; they walk, shortsighted men, treating the word of God as if it were a culprit; they treat the Bible as a magistrate would treat a criminal; they forget that the day is coming when they themselves will stand as prisoners at the bar of Jesus' awful judgment-seat, and that they themselves will be tried there, and that the Bible itself will judge them at that awful day. No wonder that they are stricken with blindness; blindness is the inevitable punishment of pride and presumption; and their cavils at the Bible are the natural fruit of their boldness, which is their retribution.
II. Another requisite for readers of the Bible is patience. If we wait patiently with faith, God rewards us for our patience by explaining these hard sayings. Thus he tried Abraham by promises which seemed impossible; but Abraham believed God, and what seemed impossible thus came to pass, and Abraham thus became the father of the faithful. We ought to expect difficulties in a revelation from such a being as God with such a creature as man; therefore, we ought not to be staggered by them. These difficulties in the Old Testament are not as great as the difficulty of rejecting Jesus Christ who received the whole of the Old Testament. These difficulties are but as molehills compared with that mountain of difficulty. All these difficulties are dissolved in the crucible of faith; we even rejoice in them because they are trials of our faith in Christ; and this we know is "the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." And so these difficulties are to us like fair leaves and like beautiful flowers, of which our unfading wreath and celestial garland of angelic glory will be woven.
Bishop Wordsworth, Penny Pulpit,No. 3934.