12/4/66

Scripture: (Read Luke 21: 25-37); [the second time he used Luke 1: 26-33.]

Just suppose that you had never heard of the Bible, and a copy of it had come into your hands for the first time. You begin to read its opening pages. You will not go very far in it before you come across the expression, “The Word of the Lord came.” You will find it in the case of Abraham. And then it will recur like some repeated refrain. “The Word of the Lord came” --- to Samuel, to Nathan, to Gad, to Solomon, to Elijah. Again and again, scores of times, you can read of the Word of the Lord coming to people.

What is one to make of it? Perhaps you ask, How does the Lord speak to people? How do people know when He speaks to them? How can we be sure that the things written in the Bible really were spoken by God to the men who claimed to hear them?

It is hard to understand and to explain how inspiration comes to mankind. But it is quite certain that, at times, something seems to break in upon the familiar tenor and pattern of our thoughts. There do come moments when we are carried beyond the usual range of our thoughts, and we arrive at some bit of wisdom which seems to come to us from a Higher Wisdom. Probably every one of us has had some moments of unusual inspiration. Sometimes these moments come like a sudden meteor, leaving only a brief train of fading light. And sometimes they come to persons who are able to remember, and, by their literary power, to preserve them in writing.

When we do experience these flashes of inspiration, we find that they are not altogether intrusions from outside. When Isaac Newton was asked how he discovered and formulated the law of gravity he replied: “By thinking about it continually.” He said: “I keep the object of my research constantly before me, waiting until the first light begins to dawn, little by little; finally this changes, and at last the light is complete.”

Thus the mind seeks and works and waits and then, as when tubes of an old radio are warmed up, the message is brought in and received. Thus, from the silence of brooding listeners, inspired voices break through and sound forth when “deep calleth unto deep.”

To be sure, people are often mistaken in their claims of divine inspiration. Cranks and fanatics frequently have claimed to hear messages from God. But do the words which people think come from God stand the test of experience? Do they carry the spirit and power of God? The reality of inspiration must be tested in part by the results.

And here is where the Bible demonstrates its divine authority. Coleridge once said: “The Bible finds us.” It strikes responsive chords in our hearts which vibrate its truths. We listen to Psalms whose haunting beauty and truth linger so timelessly on the air of the ages that we feel sure the authors were thinking God’s thoughts after Him. We hear prophets moving out so far ahead of the insights of their contemporaries that we can not explain their words as echoes of crowd thinking, but conclude that it is the voice of the Eternal.

When we hear speakers talking about the comfort of having a God to die with, we might dismiss it as wishful thinking. But the heroic prophets heard and heeded the call of a God to live and die for. These words of the psalmists and prophets which stir us to creative effort and new capacity for goodness, whose appeal knows no limits of date or place --- whence do these come if not from God?

And then, at the center of the Bible stands One, Jesus the Christ, the Word made flesh. In him we have the Word which is “the same yesterday, today and forever.” His is the story that never grows old, because, as a Hindu has remarked: “Jesus must know us, for he tells us our story.” He uncovers our buried selves. He reopens within us the springs of life. He shows us the persons we were meant to be and can still be. He reveals God working in us. Bethlehem is the place where the best in us comes to birth. And Calvary is the hill were the highest in us feels holy kinship.

Moreover, the Bible brings these luminous and beloved figures together in a kind of sequence which convinces us that God is telling a continued story. Perhaps the Bible could be the more interesting to us if we could see its unfolding drama. Many of us, even those who are thought of as church pillars, treat the Bible in piecemeal bits. We read a verse or two -- perhaps even memorize them -- and sleep on them during the week like a maiden sleeping over a small piece of wedding cake!

If only we can see that the Bible is great drama, (1) beginning with the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, back in a misty morning of history; (2) then continuing through the years of slavery in Egypt until the children of Israel were led out of their captivity by Moses; (3) then hammered on the anvil of adversity in the days of the Judges until (4) David welds the tribes into a nation, and (5) Solomon lifts them to glory and splendor; only to have (6) the nation split under his successors, and taken off into exile in Babylon, but all the while cherishing the hope of a Messianic deliverer; and then, (7) in the fullness of time, there was born in Bethlehem One in whose face his followers beheld the glory of God, and in whose name established the church which has encircled the globe and survived the Caesars of the earth. Does not the divine drama of redemption run from the birth of conscience in Eden, to the birth of a nation in Jerusalem, to the birth of a Savior in Bethlehem, to the birth of a church at Pentecost? There is so much of it to convince us, as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews was convinced, that, “in many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, He has spoken to us by his Son.” [Hebrews 1: 1,2].

Surely, “the word of the Lord came” to people in Bible times. But let us also take note of the way in which the word of the Lord has come down through the Bible to us. The Hebrew prophets and psalmists and lawmakers, who heard the word of the Lord, wrote their messages in their native language. It was the Hebrew tongue. But when Palestine was overrun by the forces of Alexander the Great, and was absorbed into the Greek world, the books of the Old Testament were translated from Hebrew into the Greek language about the third century before Christ. This version of the Bible was called the Septuagint. And it was in Greek that the New Testament was written.

Then when the whole Mediterranean region was swept into the Roman Empire, Latin became the dominant language. At the end of the fourth century of our Christian era, the Bible appeared in Latin, and the version was called the Vulgate. This Vulgate Bible was the official version for the Christian church for the next few centuries.

Church officials felt that the Bible should be reserved to the clergy. It was used in the services, but was largely restricted from lay people. The appeal of the Bible is such, however, that when it is denied to people, they crave it. We modern people may let our Bibles lie unused a lot of the time. But if Bibles were banned, I suspect that there would develop a “black market” in them.

It happened so in Europe. People wanted the Bible, and they wanted it is their own language. In the 14th century John Wycliffe, and a group of scholars, translated these Scriptures into their own tongue, which was the English language. Of course common people were too poor to buy it, so public readers were sent around to read to the crowds who gathered to hear it. Hand-written copies were so expensive that we are told a wealthy farmer might pay as much as a whole load of hay for the privilege of reading in the Bible for only one day. But the Wycliffe translation was suppressed and thereafter, anyone caught reading the Scriptures in English “should forfeit land, cattle, life and goods from their heirs forever.”

Nevertheless the people could not be kept from the Bible. When Gutenberg invented the printing press with moveable type in 1452, his first book was a huge Latin Bible. Freed from the laborious work of hand copying, the circulation of the Bible spread like wildfire. William Tyndale printed the Bible in English. He was imprisoned and burned to death, but demand for the Bible could not be checked. When Oliver Cromwell came to power in England, he issued a proclamation providing for a copy of the Bible to be set up in every church for public use. People were so greedy to get their hands on it that it became necessary to chain the Bibles to the pulpit or reading stand.

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We might add that in our own church, we have had two valuable microphones stolen in a year. Mischievous young hands may pluck the grommets out of the cup receptacles in the pews. An occasional coat or purse may disappear. But thus far people have refrained from stealing Bibles from the pulpit.

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An old London bishop of that time in history complained to the Archbishop of Canterbury that worshippers even read the Bible during the sermon! Again, we might add that this is seldom a current difficulty in our churches! I remember, four decades ago, seeing rebellious University students, who thought that they hated compulsory chapel services in college, reading newspapers during the service. But I never saw one pull out a Bible to read while the guest preacher was speaking! Nor is that one of the current worries in most churches today. But when the Bible was hard to get, the people went hard after it!

And then, in 1611, there appeared the Authorized, or “King James” version, of the Holy Book. Leaders of church and state in that realm awoke to the fact that people were determined to have the Bible, and were getting it from Germany and elsewhere. Therefore, England determined to produce the best translation available. The English language was then blossoming into glory under such writers as Shakespeare, Spencer, Marlowe and Bacon. Into that well-cultivated tongue the Bible was translated in such beautiful form that it has remained a classic for 3 1/2 centuries. Its lovely passages have been read and learned by heart. Its phrases have been woven into poetry and public documents and prose literature; and it has been plowed into the soil of daily conversation. It has been sung into our hearts through hymns and Hallelujah Choruses.

But the Bible is the Word of Life, and the words of its language must keep pace with the stream of living. New words are coined and old words change their meaning. And so Biblical versions undergo revision from generation to generation. In 1952 there appeared the Revised Standard Version. A new English version has since come out. Various unofficial translations have been offered. Roman Catholic scholars brought out their version. And so it goes on.

The Word of the Lord which came to the prophets and psalmists has come down to us through the Bible. We may let our Bibles go unread for long periods of time. But millions have risked their lives to read it and many have lost their lives to translate it. All of its words have been studied by scholars and tested by experience. Its pages are wet with tears of sorrow and of joy. No barriers of language; no threats of church or state, have been able to eliminate it or hold it back. How can we explain the Bible’s perennial appeal and advance? Is there any adequate answer except that through it comes the Word of Life?

Now, having traced how the “Word of the Lord came” to writers of the Bible, and how, through them, it has come down through history to our time, it is fair to consider how the Word of the Lord might come to us --- to you and me here in 1966. Our air is full of voices giving us information and misinformation. News of graft and crime; of improper and even illegal public and private activities; of plottings and subversion and power-lust, leaves us disillusioned, cynical and distressed. Our spirits crave inspiration. We need a balancing of the bad news of our time with the good news of God. And the best news ever to be announced is that “God loved the world so much that He gave His Son, that whosoever believes on him should not perish, but live lastingly.” [John 3: 16]. An alternative to wringing our hands and crying: “What is the world coming to?” is to turn to the Word and to see what has come to the world from God through Christ.

The Word of the Lord came to Abraham when he was an old man, and it quickened his spirit for effective living. It came to young Jeremiah, living in a suburb of Jerusalem, and he left his sheltered environment to help clean up the mess of corruption in his country. It came to the psalmist, walking through “the valley of the shadow of death” and took away the fear. [Psalm 23: 4]. These promises can come alive today to the old and the young, to the troubled and the sorrowing, if we will read and heed, listen and understand, the Word of the Lord and the coming of the Savior.

As we approach Christmas, we shall be singing: “Joy to the world, the Lord is come; Let earth receive her king. Let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.” We need not wait for Christmas day to open our hearts and minds to receive the Christ as our King. Then we may know what the Bible means when it says, “And the word of the Lord came.”

Each one of us, each member and friend in our church -- not just a few -- can quietly rededicate his or her life to Christ and his cause. We can cease avoiding and evading him. We can openly champion his cause. We can confess, and repent of, our sins, and find our place, in an honest way, in the worship and work and outreach of the church. We can pray for its ministers, and for the officers whom we have chosen, and for each other, in mutual support of God’s spiritual government -- His Kingdom.

-- ‘Till “heaven and nature sing,” and “earth receive her King.”

Let us pray: God, help us, and remind us, to tune in on the best news and to join in the rejoicing. Amen.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, December 4, 1966.

Also at First Baptist Church of Wisconsin Rapids,

December 10, 1978.