The Authenticity of the Bible

Assurance that the Bible is the Word of God

Reuben A. Torrey

• Publisher: Aneko Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781622457571
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. – 2 Timothy 3: 16Is the Bible the Word of God? That is the most important question for humanity. If the Bible is the Word of God, if it is an absolutely trustworthy revelation from God Himself, of Himself, His purposes, and His will, of man's duty and destiny, and of spiritual and eternal realities, then we have a starting point from which we can proceed to the conquest of the whole domain of religious truth. This book will show you the absolute trustworthiness of the Bible. Follow the Word of God, and it will lead you as it has led thousands of others. It will lead you out of the uncertainty and the restlessness and the ultimate despair of unbelief and into the certitude, the joy, the victory, and the ultimate glory of an intelligent faith in the Bible as the Word of God, and in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.

Chapter 10

The Consequences and Cure of Unbelief

In the last chapter, we saw that the causes of unbelief were (1) misrepresentations of Christianity on the part of its professed adherents, (2) ignorance of the Bible, history, and science, (3) conceit, (4) sin, and (5) resistance to the Holy Spirit. Now we will look at the consequences and cure of unbelief.

Consequences of Unbelief

The first consequence of unbelief is sin. Unbelief breeds sin. There is no doubt of that. It is caused by sin, and in turn it brings about offspring that is similar to its ancestors. Sin first entered into human history through questioning God’s Word. When the devil tried to lead Eve into disobeying God, he began by throwing out an insinuation that the Word of God was not true. He first said, Hath God said (Genesis 3:1), and then he flatly denied what God said.

The devil was the first lecturer in unbelief. He only had an audience of one, but he reached millions through that lecture. He saw at once the effectiveness of this mode of attack upon us and upon man’s moral integrity. From that day to this, the devil has been deceiving people into sin by sowing the seeds of unbelief in their hearts. He well knows what sort of a crop that seed brings forth. When a young man or young woman falls into unbelief, look out for their morals. Unbelief forms a very shaky foundation for an upright character.

A former president of the British National Secular Society, a man well known here in Bolton, who in fact was elected to Parliament from the Bolton district, said, “I have seen the dreadful effects that unbelief produces on people’s characters. I have had proof of its deteriorating effects in my own experience. Its tendency is to utter debasement.” Occupying the position that he did, Joseph Barker certainly knew unbelief and its consequences, and this testimony of his to its destructive effects upon character is beyond question true.

The second consequence of unbelief is anarchy. Anarchists are necessarily always unbelievers. It is impossible for someone who believes in the Bible to be an anarchist. When the miserable French vagabond and anarchist Vaillant stood upon the gallows, he boasted of his unbelief. His unbelief and his anarchy went hand in hand.

Louis Blanc, one of the great leaders of anarchy, is reported to have said, “When I was an infant, I rebelled against my nurse. When I was a child, I rebelled against my tutors and my parents. When I was a man, I rebelled against the government. When I die, if there is any heaven and I go there, I will rebel against God.”

The acceptance of Christian­ity would do away with anarchy on the one hand, and it would do away with the oppression of the poor by the rich that leads to anarchy on the other hand.

The third consequence of unbelief is misery and despair. God has created us for fullness of joy, and He has made fullness of joy possible for each one of us. However, the fullness of joy that God intends for us, and which alone can satisfy a soul made in God’s image, can only come from a living faith in Jesus as the Son of God, and in the Bible as the Word of God.

Infidels are never completely happy. There may be surface happiness, but it is not, as everyone knows who knows them well, deep and satisfying. One night as I ended a sermon in a New Zealand town, a man somewhat beyond middle life walked in front of the platform as he made his way out of the building. He looked up at me and scowled and said, “I am an unbeliever.”

I replied, “You do not need to tell us that; your face shows it. You are one of the most miserable-looking men I have ever seen.” I received a letter from him the next day, confessing that he was indeed miserable. Did you ever know a joyous old atheist? As lighthearted as they may seem, at least when they are around groups of people, did you ever see in them that deep, continuous, overflowing joyfulness that is so characteristic of the aged Christian?

On the day of the death of a noted American atheist, I was with a friend of his, and we got to talking about him. He said to me, “Every time of late when I have gone to see him, his wife has said to me, ‘Don’t tell him that he is growing old. It makes him very angry.’” However, it does not make the aged Christian angry to tell him he is growing old, for he knows he is simply ripening for a better world.

Unbelief and atheism frequently breed despair and suicide. Even the best of pagan writers taught the suitability of suicide. For example, Epictetus says, “The door is open. When you want to, you can leave off playing the game of life.” Mrs. Amelia E. Barr, who has made a study of suicide, says, “The advent of Christianity made self-destruction a crime.” She further says that the revival of unbelief in France at the time of the Revolution caused the termination of the civil and religious laws against suicide. She still further says, “The great underlying cause of the advance of modern suicide is the advance of lax or skeptical religious views.”

Unbelief logically leads to pessimism and despair. Ingersoll himself wrote an editorial in a New York paper in defense of suicide. This editorial was followed in New York and the surrounding neighborhood by a harvest of suicides. The man who wrote the editorial was directly responsible for its consequences, and it is not to be wondered at that the editorial raised a storm of protest and indignation, but his article was the logical outcome of his unbelief.

A poor but brilliant young woman from one of the Southern states came to Chicago at the time of the World’s Fair. Her intellectual gifts were so great that she was introduced into the best society, where she spoke about the “new woman.” She was led into unbelief by an able advocate of unbelief in Chicago, but her career as an atheist was brief. She soon met a suicide’s death in an eastern city, and one branch of the unbelievers of America today meet annually at her grave to commemorate her death. Her brokenhearted father also died by his own hand. Sadly, this is the genuine fruit of unbelief.

The fourth consequence of unbelief is a hopeless grave. Colonel Ingersoll once said, “The pulpit has cast a shadow over the cradle and a gloom over the grave.” If this is true, it is a most remarkable fact that people, even professedly unbelieving people, are so anxious to have Christian preachers conduct their funerals.

There is a gloom over the grave by nature and by sin, but the Bible dispels the shadow. If you throw away the Bible, you do not get rid of the gloom, but you do get rid of the light that illumines it. Unbelief shrouds the grave in gloom, and the only rays of light are those stolen from Christianity.

Colonel Ingersoll, at his brother’s grave, delivered an address that was eloquent in words, but was sad beyond description. As he drew toward the close of that address, he said that hope sees the glimmering of a star through the darkness, but he was not honest enough to say that that star was the Star of Bethlehem.

On the other hand, D. L. Moody, at his brother’s grave, sounded forth a note of joy and exultation. Looking into the grave, he quoted 1 Corinthians 15:55-57: O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Two men died the same year in America: Colonel Ingersoll, the acknowledged leader of American unbelief, and D. L. Moody, the leader of Christian activity. Compare the deaths and funerals of these two men, and see for yourselves whether the Christian’s death or the agnostic’s death is the gloomy one.

The death of Colonel Ingersoll was sudden, and without a ray of cheer and brightness, his funeral was unutterably dismal. His wife and daughter, who loved him, could not bear to have the body taken from the house until the beginning of decay made it an absolute necessity. It was all they had, and they despairingly clung to that decaying body. The scene at the crematory, as described in the daily papers, was enough to make the heart of anyone ache, no matter how little one might be in sympathy with the views of the unfortunate man who had passed into eternity.

On the other hand, the death and funeral of Mr. Moody were triumphant in every detail. Early on the morning of his departure from this world, his oldest son was sitting beside his bed. He heard his father speaking in a low tone of voice, and he leaned over to lis...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Why I Believe That the Bible Is the Word of God
• Two More Reasons Why I Believe That the Bible Is the Word of God
• Four More Reasons Why I Believe That the Bible Is the Word of God
• Three More Reasons Why I Believe That the Bible Is the Word of God
• Did Jesus Christ Really Rise from the Dead?
• The Self-Evident Truthfulness of the Gospel Stories of the Resurrection
• The Circumstantial Evidence of the Resurrection of Christ
• What the Resurrection of Jesus from the Dead Proves
• The Causes of Unbelief
• The Consequences and Cure of Unbelief
• Reuben A. Torrey – A Brief Biography
• Other Similar Titles