Doubting and Inquiring (Part 2)
Men say, "Well, you do not believe in the story of Jonah and the whale, do you?" I want to tell you I do believe it. A few years ago there was a man whom some one thought a little unsound, and they did not want him to speak on the Northfield platform. I said, "I will soon find out whether or not he is sound." I asked him, "Do you believe the whale swallowed Jonah?" "Yes," he said, "I do." I said, "All right, then, I want you to come and speak." He came, and gave a lecture on Jonah.
In Matthew we read that the people twice asked Jesus for a sign; and He said the only sign this generation shall have shall be the sign of Jonah in the whale's belly. He connected that with his resurrection; and I honestly believe that if we overthrow the one, we must overthrow the other. As you get along in life, and have perhaps as many friends on the other side of the river as you have on this side, you will get about as much comfort out of the story of the resurrection as any other story in the Bible. Christ had no doubt about the story. He said his resurrection would be a sign like that given unto the Ninevites. It was the resurrected man Jonah who walked through the streets of Nineveh. It must be supposed that the men of Nineveh had heard of Jonah being thrown overboard and swallowed by a great fish. I think it is a master-stroke of Satan to make us doubt the resurrection. But these modern philosophers have made a discovery. They say a whale's throat is no larger than a man's fist, and it is a physical impossibility for a whale to swallow a man. The book of Jonah says that God prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. Could not God make a fish large enough to swallow Jonah? If God could create a world, I think He could create a fish large enough to swallow a million men. As the old woman said, "Could He not, if He chose, prepare a man that could swallow a whale?"
A couple of these modern philosophers were going to Europe some time ago, and a Scotch friend of mine was on board who knew his Bible pretty well. They got to talking about the Bible, and one of them said: "I am a scientific man, and I have made some investigation of that Book, and I have taken up some of the statements in it, and I have examined them, and I pronounce them untrue. There is a statement in the Bible that Balaam's ass spoke. I have taken pains to examine the mouth of an ass, and it is so formed that it could not speak." My friend stood it as long as he could, and then said, "Eh, mon, you make the ass, and I will make him speak." The idea that God could not speak through the mouth of an ass!
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 do not know why any 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 did not like.
Once a gentleman took his Bible to his minister, 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 did not 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 to wait 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 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, do not believe it. I am sick and tired 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?
It is a most absurd statement for a man to say he will have nothing to do with the supernatural, will not believe the supernatural. If you are going to throw off the supernatural, you might as well burn your Bibles at once. You take the supernatural out of that Book, and you have taken Jesus Christ out of it, you have taken out the best part of the Book. There is no part of the Bible that does not teach supernatural things. In Genesis we read that Abraham fell on his face, and God talked with him. That is supernatural. If that did not take place, the man who wrote Genesis wrote a lie, and out goes Genesis. In Exodus you find the ten plagues which came upon Egypt. If that is not true, the writer of Exodus was a liar. Then in Leviticus it is said that fire consumed the two sons of Aaron. That was a supernatural event; and if that was not true, we must throw out the whole
book.
In Numbers is the story of the brazen serpent. And so with every book in the Old Testament: there is not one in which you do not find something supernatural. There are more supernatural things mentioned in the Gospels about Jesus Christ than in any other part of the Bible; and the last portion a man is willing to give up is the four Gospels. Five hundred years before his birth, the angel Gabriel came down and told Daniel that He should be born.
"Yes, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation" (9:21).
Again, Gabriel comes down to Nazareth, and tells the Virgin that she should be the mother of the Saviour:
"Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a Son, and shalt call his name Jesus" (Luke 1:31).
We find, too, that the angel went into the temple and told Zacharias that he was to be the father of John the Baptist, the forerunner of the Messiah; Zacharias was struck dumb for nine months because of his unbelief.
Then, when Christ was born, we find angels appearing to the shepherds at Bethlehem, telling them of the birth of the Saviour.
"Unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord" (Luke 2:11).
The fact that the wise men saw the star in the east, and followed it, was surely supernatural. So was the warning that God sent to Joseph in a dream, telling him to flee into Egypt. So was the fact of our Lord's going into the temple at the age of twelve, discussing with the doctors, and being more than a match for them all. So were the circumstances attending his baptism, when God spake from heaven, saying: "This is my beloved Son." For three and a half years Jesus trod the streets and highways of Palestine. Think of the many wonderful miracles that He wrought during those years! One day He speaks to the leper, and he is made whole; one day He speaks to the sea, and it obeys Him. When He died, the sun refused to look upon the scene; this old world recognised Him, and reeled and rocked like a drunken man. And when He burst asunder the bands of death and came out of Joseph's sepulchre, that was supernatural. Christmas Evans, the great Welsh preacher, says: "Many reformations die with the reformer; but this Reformer ever lives to carry on his reformation." Thank God, we do not worship a dead Jew. If we worshipped a dead Jew, we would not have been quickened and have received life in our souls. I thank God our Christ is a supernatural Christ, and this Book a supernatural Book; and I thank God I live in a country where it is so free that all men can read it.
Some people think that we are deluded, that this is imagination. Well, it is a glorious imagination, is it not? It has lasted between thirty and forty years with me, and I think it is going to last while I live, and when I go into another world. Some one, when reading about Paul, said he was mad. Well, it was replied, if he was, he had a good keeper on the way, and a good asylum at the end of the journey. I wish we had a lot of mad men in the world just now like Paul.
When Paul wrote to Timothy that all Scripture was given by inspiration of God, and was profitable, he meant what he said. "Well," some say, "do you believe all Scripture is given by inspiration?" Yes, every word of it; but I do not believe all the actions and incidents it records were inspired. For instance, when the devil told a lie, he was not inspired to tell a lie; and when a wicked man like Ahab said anything, he was not inspired; but some one was inspired to write about it, and so all was given by inspiration and is profitable.
"The highest proof of the infallibility of Scripture," said Dr. A. J. Gordon, "is the practical one that we have proved it so. As the coin of the realm has always been found to buy the amount represented on its face, so the prophecies and promises of Holy Scripture have yielded their face-value to those who have taken the pains to prove them. If they have not always done so, it is probable that they have not yet matured. Certainly there are multitudes of Christians who have so far proved the veracity of Scripture, that they are ready to trust it without reserve in all that it pledges for the world yet unseen, and the life yet unrealized."
A man said to a young convert: "How can you prove that the Bible is inspired?" He replied: "Because it inspires me." I think that is pretty good proof. Let the Word of God into your soul, and it will inspire you—it cannot help it.
Your Victory in Jesus
- D. L. Moody
- D. L. Moody
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