bibliolitry

Topic: Bible

Type: Article

Author: A. Allison Lewis

King Jehoiakim received a message from God, by the hand of the prophet Jeremiah. The king understood very well what Jeremiah wrote. In fact, he understood so well that it made him furious. As the scribe read the scroll the king became so furious that he took a knife and cut it up and took the pieces and threw them into the fire. Jehoiakim understood what Jeremiah wrote, but he despised God, and was not going to have God rule over him. No, sir, God was not going to tell him what to do. This was a problem of not accepting rather than of not understanding. Have men changed? No, they have not! They are the same as in Jeremiah’s day.

The prophet Isaiah in speaking of the children of Israel wrote: Because they have cast away the law of God and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel [ISA 5:24]. It was not that they did not understand but rather that they WILLINGLY rejected His Word. They despised it. You too, if you are trying to use that ancient excuse, are doing it for the same reason--you WILL NOT ACCEPT what God demands. Why not now admit your rebellion and turn to the God of Heaven and ask for His mercy. Call upon Him. He will abundantly pardon. Men have not changed. They reject the Word of God, because they reject the God of the Word.

A modern, well known, illustration of the rejection of the Bible is that of George Butterick. He was the major editor of the popular, Modernistic, Interpreters Bible. He gives a personal illustration in one of his books. He wrote: "Recently we heard a sermon from the ‘Word of God’ on the text, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. Its primary thesis was that we are all cursed in Adam’s sin." Dr. Butterick had some of his children with him and he was debating within himself whether he should stay and listen to this preacher or get up and leave. He stayed for a while, and the preacher went on to say: " ‘We are trebly cursed from birth. We are cursed physically, spiritually and eternally. There would have been no physical death but for the curse resting on us from Adam.’ Should we stay? We were shaken in our resolve. Then the seven-year old at our elbow made this comment: ‘Did God do that to me? My Bible doesn’t say God is like that.’ We determined we had no right to cloud a child’s mind, so we left the church. We retorted, as gently as a fast-ebbing patience would permit, that though it might have been Adam’s sin it was God’s responsibility. Who had so ordered His Word that all the children of history should be cursed for the wrong of one man, thousands of years ago, whose name perchance they had not heard. Such a God, we suggested, had earned the verdict of the French skeptic: ‘Your God is my Devil.’ But that came of Bibliolotry. The worship of a man-made idol called ‘the inerrancy of the Scriptures’ " [The Christian Fact and Modern Doubt, pages 173-175]. BIBLIOLOTRY--Bible worship? No--not at all. It was just simply some humble servant of God accepting and preaching the plain message of the Word of God. But Butterick, knowing full well what the Bible says, rejected what it says. He would not accept what it says as being true. He said it cannot be true. He understood English and he understood Greek, but he refused to accept it. It is not a problem of understanding but rather of ACCEPTING what God says. Will you NOW ACCEPT HIS WORD, HIS LOVE, HIS MERCY, AND HIS FREE SALVATION?