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"...The church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth."
I Timothy 3:15
Mistakes God Did Not Make
B. H. Shaddock
From The Baptist Challenge, January 2014
Life on earth depends on the good behavior of snowflakes. Just a little mistake by the Creator, and the earth would be as dead as the other planets.
Many astute minds have overlooked the fact that if life had evolved on the earth without a master mind it would have evolved its own destroyers.
If the Holy Scriptures had not been inspired, some of the hundreds of mistakes that are found in all other ancient books would have gotten into the Bible, and it would be as easily discredited as they are.
Many visionary theories would not be taken seriously if men realized that, through the centuries, subtraction and addition must play together or break up the game. If for the last 3,000 years, the annual birth rate of mice and men had exceeded the death rate by only one half of one per cent, a million more worlds would have been needed for colonization.
The Delicate Adjustment of Nature
Honest thinkers must see, if they investigate, that only an infallible mind could have adjusted our world and its life in its amazing intricacies. The purpose of this article is to show that it would have been a mistake if God had done any other way than the Bible says He did.
The God of the Holy Scriptures is the only God whom scientists seriously consider — all others have been discredited. He is the only God whom free-thinkers, re-thinkers, and me-thinkers regard as a worthwhile target. Yet the nominal church has leaders who apologize for the mistakes of the Bible — the only source of authority the church has.
Of course, if, through the ages, God has sponsored a religion that needs to have its discredited theories replaced every century, as science does with its own theories, He must have made many mistakes.
Man is the mistake-maker of the universe. He has made more trouble for God and himself than within the bounds of human calculation. A colony of ants makes fewer errors. A library could be filled with details of silly and even appalling superstitions that have shackled the race — many of them with us yet.
All other ancient books accepted the delusions of their times. You would expect a God to know better. He did! If the Bible warned against black cats, planting in the wrong phase of the moon, or when the signs of the zodiac are not propitious, if the Bible had sponsored any of the hoodoo, voodoo, pow wow, and jinx-defeating rites that are popular with many, ignorance would be a Christian asset. Those who insist that much of the Bible is folklore have yet to explain why the Bible disapproves of “old wives’ fables,” sorcery, enchantment, soothsaying, witchcraft, necromancy, and the fleet of superstitions that enslaved the world.
Old-fashioned Medicine
It is not so long ago that the treatment of many sick people started with the bleeding of the patient. In my youth, children with measles were clothed with a tea made from the refuse of the sheep barn, and children with croup were given a drink so revolting that I shrink from naming it. If the Bible prescribed any of a hundred old-time remedies now discarded by science, atheists would make much of it. In the Bible we have figs for poultice, wine for disinfectant, and oil to anoint damaged tissues — good medicine yet.
The Bible is the only ancient sacred book that has emphasized prophecy and has staked its case on the forecasts of the prophets. Prophecies that do not come true ought to discredit their purveyors; but unfortunately, multitudes come back for a second and third helping. Since my days in a little brick schoolhouse I have heard and read the forecasts of teachers, philosophers, statesmen, poets, politicians, and some preachers, who with amazing unanimity have prophesied the speedy moral uplift of the nations.
For a few decades it seemed evident to many that reform forces working in and with the church might Christianize society, before the order of events foretold by our Lord could reach consummation. But the forecasts of a million volunteer prophets have now been discarded by present world conditions — the Bible is unimpeached.
Surely no student of the Bible will say that God ever promised peace, prosperity, and stability to any nation when its show houses, stadiums, arenas, grandstands, night clubs, and saloons are crowded and its churches comparatively empty. Just now it takes a deal of credulity to blow the whistle for Utopia as the next station stop. We have had prophecies from every stratum of society, — from poolroom to pulpit, — and those not in harmony with the Word of God have failed.
Let me put it mildly. I can understand how a misinformed prophet can continue popular before his prophecies are discredited, but I cannot understand how he can continue unabashed after the opposite of what he has promised comes true. If the Bible forecast is right and his forecast has been wrong, it seems to me he should apologize to the Bible rather than for it.
Those who think of the Bible as a back number would show sagacity by reflecting on the words of our Lord, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (Matt. 24:35). The Bible records no prophecy having to do with our times that has not been fulfilled or is in process of fulfillment.