# 4 of Ten Reasons Why I Believe The Bible Is The Word
Of God by R. A. Torrey
FOURTH, on the ground of
the immeasurable superiority of the teachings of the Bible to those of any
other and all other books.
It is quite fashionable in some quarters to compare the
teachings of the Bible with the teachings of Zoroaster, and Buddha, and
Confucius, and Epictetus, and Socrates, and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, and a
number of other heathen authors. The difference between the teachings of the
Bible and those of these men is found in three points-
First, the Bible has in it
nothing but truth, while all the others have truth mixed with error. It is true
Socrates taught how a philosopher ought to die; he also taught how a woman of
the town ought to conduct her business. Jewels there are in the teachings of
these men, but (as Joseph Cook once said) they are "jewels picked out of
the mud."
Second, the Bible contains all truth.
There is not a truth to be found anywhere on moral or spiritual subjects that
you cannot find in substance within the covers of that old Book. I have often,
when speaking upon this subject, asked anyone to bring me a single truth on
moral or spiritual subjects, which, upon reflection, I could not find within
the covers of this book, and no one has ever been able to do it. I have taken
pains to compare some of the better teachings of infidels with those of the
Bible. They indeed have jewels of thought, but they are, whether they knew it
or not, stolen jewels, and stolen from the very book they ridicule.
The third point
of superiority is this: the Bible contains more truth than all other books
together. Get together from all literature of ancient and modern times all the
beautiful thoughts you can; put away all the rubbish; put all these truths that
you have culled from the literature of all ages into one book, and as the
result, even then you will not have a book that will take the place of this one
book.
This is not a large book. I hold in my hand a copy that I
carry in my vest pocket and yet in this one little book there is more of truth
than in all the books which man has produced in all the ages of his history.
How will you account for it? There is only one rational way. This is not man's
book, but God's book.
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FIFTH, on the ground of
the history of the book, its victory over attack.
This book has always been hated. No sooner was it given
to the world than it met the hatred of men, and they tried to stamp it out.
Celsus tried it by the brilliancy of his genius, Porphyry by the depth of his
philosophy; but they failed, Lucian directed against it the shafts of his
ridicule, Diocletian the power of the Roman empire; but they failed. Edicts
backed by all the power of the empire were issued that every Bible should be
burned, and that everyone who had a Bible should be put to death. For eighteen
centuries every engine of destruction that human science, philosophy, wit,
reasoning or brutality could bring to bear against a book has been brought to
bear against that book to stamp it out of the world, but it has a mightier hold
on the world to-day than ever before.
If that were man's book it would have been annihilated
and forgotten hundreds of years ago, but because there is in it "the
hiding of God's power," though at times all the great men of the world
have been against it, and only an obscure remnant for it, still it has
fulfilled wonderfully the words of Christ, though not in the sense of the
original prophecy, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall
not pass away."
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