What Is The Bible?
By Evangelist Percy George Cross
This article is from the April 1921 "The Bible Champion" monthly periodical.
1. The Bible is the Book of No Mistakes. It is the only Book without a moral or spiritual mistake. It is the only Book of sixty-six books that is a harmonious whole, a moral mosaic built by many hands in different ages and in various lands. Man has been much of a moralist, yet with all of his moralizing by all of his philosophers in all the ages man falls far below the moral code of the Bible. Not only has man failed outside of the Bible to make a perfect code of morals, but man has ignominiously failed to live up to the code of his own creation. His own work mocks him! The Bible is the Book of the perfect plans, built on a perfect plan, and containing the perfect plan for man.
Consider this irrefragable fact: destroy all the books of all the libraries of all the ages and leave one Bible, and you have lost no light for life and labor. Or put it this way: Collate from all the multitudinous writings of man the moral codes and standards for character and conduct and leave me just one Bible and you will have less than I have! Before the New Testament Bible was written, the greatest philosophers failed to give to man the perfect standard of life; since this Bible is in our midst, man has signally failed to give to man a better standard, or to live up to this standard with the New Testament writings to go by. The Bible has been imitated but never duplicated. The Bible is the one uncopyrighted Book. It is anyman's Book and everyman's Book, yet no man's Book. There is no law protecting it nor forbidding any infringement on its writings. All men can draw from it, and do draw from it, for any and all purposes. Many criticize it, others strive to destroy it, not a few are indifferent to it, some deny it, but "the Scriptures cannot be broken." (John 10:35)
2. The Bible is the Book of Perfect Reason. The Bible is the only Book that gives a reasonable and comprehensive account of the creation of man and the universe. The more you study the accounts of the creative evolution of the hypothetical sciences of man, all are built on the shifting sands of assertion and surmise, two facts are realized: Man looms up as a failing pigmy before the problem of life and eternity, and the Bible is more and more being vindicated in its reason and revelation of light for the facts of life and its future. If the Bible had come to you saying, "In the beginning God made man out of a tadpole," you would have refused the Book with scorn: "God made man out of an amoeba," or, "God created man out of a bit of floating protoplasm," or, "A water worm decided to leave its habitat and become a dry-land being and by wiggling grew into a man," you would have rejected such a book as the vapid sayings of an idiot being. Imagine, if possible, what it would mean if we were called upon to worship such a protoplasmic god, the father of tadpole man!
If the Genesis account is wrong, as some sinful men have asserted and never proven, why is it that some man has not by the fine force of his superior intellect given to erring man a better account than that of Moses? Some affirm that that age was crude and chaotic, an age of ignorance and superstition. Then how do you account for Genesis?
3. The Bible is the Book with the perfect man in it. It is the one lone Book containing the throbbing portrait of the only perfect character in all history - Jesus Christ. The Bible is the only Book with a Man in it. Here is a stupendous fact that defies the explanation of mortal man, let alone the creating of such a character by the mind of man. It is to be noted that the world's greatest philosophers all wrote their philosophies before Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote their biographies of Christ, the sinless One and the selfless One. Man failed before this fact of revelation to create the perfect character, and with this revelation to go by, man has failed even worse since! He has failed to put into literature such a life with the illustration before him, and has failed to live up to the illustration of his own creation, let alone living up to the illustration given of God in Christ Jesus. Further, it is easily proven that the very best characters man has created in literature appropriated their finest traits and sayings from Jesus Christ. You believe in Cicero? There are more quotations from the New Testament Scriptures in Tertullian of the second century than of the writings of Cicero in all writers of three centuries. Do you believe in the most popular writings of antiquity, the poems of Virgil and Horace, the annals of Tacitus, and the orations of Cicero? You say "Yes!" Why? These writings you say you accept and believe in have not half the solid proof as to authenticated authorship as have the biographies of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Do you believe in these? If not, why not? No school of thought, be it rationalistic, materialistic, or socialistic, that can lay any just claim to scholarship, dare deny that Paul the apostle wrote the four epistles of the contention, Romans, First and Second Corinthians and Galatians. Paul was an eye witness and spoke of those things that he knew. I am persuaded Almighty God designed the Bible to stand upon its own merits and not by the testimony of the pens of men. Truly it is the lonely Book and stands alone as The Book.
4. The Bible is the Book of the Perfect God. It is the only Book that reveals to man a sensible and reasonable account of the Creator. Man's ideas of God are crude, cruel, and fantastic. Look at a few: "The First Cause." Think of praying to "O, Thou First Cause!" "God is law and law is God." Law is lifeless. Think of holding any communion with law! "Nature is God;" then go talk to a tree and get acquainted with God! God is not in a tree nor up a tree! This is bad enough, but think of the gods man has made where the influence of the Bible is absent. The paganism of Africa is appalling in the light of the Bible. Man left to himself is a polygamist and a polytheist, and in sin a polyglot! The Bible reveals to man, amid the blackness of sin, God as our Heavenly Father, a loving God, a just God, a suffering God, a sympathizing God, a merciful God, an all wise God.
5. The Bible is the Book of Perfect Love. Not only does the Bible reveal God as love, but the gift of His love; Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, stands forth as the One lovable, loving Being, in all man's History. Before the Bible became the love of man was lust. In all the writings of man love looms forth as a thing based upon the flesh life. Plato's disquisitions on what purports to be love become drivel in the light of Paul's phillipic to the church of God at Corinth as found in the thirteenth chapter of his epistle. With that, the saying of Christ is, "Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them that despitefully use you." This is not of man for the world of man does not think that way, and here is one of the reasons man is found fighting the Bible. The lust of man is to kill his enemies, and not by any means love them.
6. The Bible is the Book of Perfect Prayer. The prayer wheel of the Tibetan is a fair sample of what man makes of prayer without the Bible. Prayer? Man knows not the meaning of prayer without the revelation of God as found in the Bible. The man of evolution knows not the privilege of prayer for such a theory leaves no place for prayer. Just as the Bible is God's means of talking to you, so prayer is God's means for You to talk to Him. Strange would be the child that never holds converse with his parent. A study of the prayers of Christ and the apostles reveals a wondrous working of this misunderstood and misused privilege and power. This age is in sore need of a New Testament revival of the practice of bent knee prayer.
7. The Bible is the Book of Promised Return. Here is thought that lies utterly beyond the mind of man. This Book reveals the death, burial and resurrection of the Sinless One who was made sin for man with the climax revelation that as He left so will He return. Jesus, the Sinless One, began His earthly life in a rniraculous birth. His earthly life was so lived as to make for history the outstanding miracle in character and conduct. His life ended in a miraculous going and must be consummated in a miraculous return. A sinless man is a life miracle completely foreign to the unaided mind of man. The raising from the dead of this Man is true to God's plan, and the return of this Raised Being is a revelation too colossal for unaided man to plan.
8. The Bible is the Book of Perfect Rule. It reveals to man the perfect rule for the individual life of man. Is is the only Book that brings to man the perfect plan for the government of man on Earth. The many plans of man for the society of, man have all failed or are failing. The aching fault with all of man's plans for the government of man is the failure to take into account - Man. The Bible reveals to man the government of grace for the growth of man in the goodness of God. Not until man becomes a new born being in Christ, circumscribed by the Lordship of Christ under the will of God will man be well governed within, and with peace, plenty, and contentment without. This is sustained by three pivotal facts that belong with peculiar force to the Bible, and the Bible only.
First: The authority of the purpose of the Bible. The purpose of God is the salvation of man from man, and from sin within.
Second: The authority of the Spirit of the Bible to make men selfless where man is selfish. Holiness in man for all the sons and daughters, of man. Man must be made right within before you can right the world without.
Third: The authority of the Fruits of the Bible, which is to make man live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world. Sober with himself, righteous in his relationships in all the walks of life, and like God in his mental processes and heart sympathies.
Open the Bible and "Let God be found true." Amen.
Swiss man flies over Channel on jet wing
September 26, 2008 - 4:53pm
DOVER, England (AP) - He had nothing above him but four tanks of kerosene and nothing below him but the cold waters of the English Channel. But Yves Rossy leapt from a plane and into the record books on Friday, crossing the channel on a homemade jet-propelled wing.
Rossy jumped from the plane about 8,200 feet over Calais, France, blasting across the narrow body of water and deploying his parachute over the South Foreland lighthouse, delighting onlookers who dotted Dover's famous white cliffs, cheering and waving as Rossy came into view.
Backed by a gentle breeze, Rossy crossed the Channel in 13 minutes, averaging 125 miles per hour. In a final flourish, he did a figure eight as he came over England, although the wind blew him away from his planned landing spot next to the lighthouse.
"It was perfect. Blue sky, sunny, no clouds, perfect conditions," the Swiss pilot said after touching down in an adjacent field. He said he wanted to show, "it is possible to fly, a little bit, like a bird."
Onlookers scooped up their children, picnics and dogs to race to the landing site as Rossy posed for photographs. His ground crew doused him with champagne, and the pilot swigged greedily from the bottle as he waved to the band of onlookers gathered to cheer him and take pictures with cell phone cameras.
A small airplane zipped across the sky with a banner that read: "Well done Jet Man."
Rossy said he had watched passenger ferries cutting a path between the Britain and France as he tore through the air.
"I was happy to be faster than them," he said. The 49 year old said the Channel crossing was the realization of a dream. "That's the most gratifying thing you can do," he said.
Rossy's trip _ twice delayed due to bad weather _ was meant to trace the route of French aviator Louis Bleriot, the first person to cross the narrow body of water in an airplane 99 years ago.
The South Foreland Lighthouse was the site of Guglielmo Marconi's experiments with radio telegraphy in 1898. Bleriot used the white building as a target during his pioneering flight, the building's manager, Simon Ovenden, said.
The Channel has attracted a range of adventurers and stuntmen over the years, most drawn to the 21-mile wide neck of water between Dover and Calais.
Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American doctor John Jeffries were the first to fly from Britain to mainland Europe in a hot air balloon in 1785.
Capt. Matthew Webb braved stinging jellyfish and strong currents to be the first to swim across the Channel in 1875. Other stunts followed: The first hovercraft crossing in 1959, the first human-powered air crossing in 1979.
Geoff Clark, a 54-year-old onlooker from Chatham, in southern England, called Rossy's flight "a remarkable achievement."
"We saw the climax of his attempt as he came down to earth with his parachute. It's been an exciting afternoon," Clark said.
Rossy's wing was made from carbon composite. It weighs about 121 pounds when loaded with fuel and carried four kerosene-burning jet turbines. The contraption has no steering devices. Rossy, a commercial airline pilot by training, wiggled his body back and forth to control the wing's movements.
He wore a heat-resistant suit similar to that worn by firefighters and racing drivers to protect him from the heat of the turbines. The cooling effect of the wind and high altitude also prevented him from getting too warm.
Mark Dale, the senior technical officer for the British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, described Rossy's flight as a "fabulous stunt."
Rossy, who spent months preparing for the cross-Channel flight, has said he wants to fly across the Grand Canyon in Arizona next.
As for the 13 lonely minutes he spent aloft between England and France, he assured reporters he felt no fear.
"I was under tension. But fear? The day I fear, I don't go," Rossy said.
FINEL: Victory over jihadists
Rooting out the real strategic threat around the globe
Bernard I. FinelFriday, September 26, 2008
Palestinian girls attend a rally held by children from a summer camp funded by Islamic Jihad. Associated Press
OP-ED:
Measuring Progress in the Struggle Against Violent Jihadism" this progress unfortunately mostly consisted of harvesting the low-hanging fruit - our victories were against the easy targets. The challenges of the next 18 months will be much more difficult.
Iraq was a major arena of progress. The routing of al Qaeda in Iraq was a significant victory. But let's not fool ourselves. Al Qaeda in Iraq was never much of a strategic threat — it lacked indigenous support, was led by a psychopath with no strategic sense, and relied heavily on importing outside suicide bombers. Though many feared that al Qaeda might one day dominate Iraq, it was always more likely that it would be defeated. The Sunni "Awakening" — the rejection of radical jihadist by Sunni elites in western Iraq — merely pre-empted al Qaeda's collapse once the U.S. withdrew or its obliteration by the Shi'ite-led central government.
Another area of progress was in Southeast Asia, where both the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in the Philippines and Jamaah Islamiah (JI) based largely in Indonesia, were significantly weakened. Both these groups were highly vulnerable. ASG was a small, thuggish organization, with a highly personalized leadership structure and an often greater commitment to criminality than to jihad. JI also was highly personalized and its extremism was out of touch with mainstream opinion in relatively moderate Indonesia. Both the Philippines and Indonesia (especially after the Bali bombings) were strongly committed to counter-terror activities and cooperation with the United States. As a result, vulnerable, highly personalized movements and effective partners were the basis for our successes in this arena.
But now comes the hard part. The progress in Iraq and Southeast Asia has been offset by the failures in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and East Africa. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is resurgent. An indigenous movement with funding from drugs and the perceived legitimacy of fighting against foreign occupation, the Taliban is much less vulnerable than groups like Iraq's al Qaeda or ASG. The Afghan government's lack of capacity makes the fight even harder.
In East Africa, Somalia saw the largest increase in Islamist violence of any country in the world over the past year. The Islamist groups, which are also indigenous, claim to be resisting foreign (in this case Ethiopian) occupation, and are operating in a country that lacks any functioning central authority.
Pakistan may be the worst case, however. Al Qaeda remains entrenched along the border with Afghanistan. There seems to be compelling evidence that not only is the Pakistani government unwilling to root out al Qaeda, some elements of the Pakistani government, notably Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) may be actively in league with jihadist terrorists. Pakistan's government, furthermore, is weak, and crippled by factional divisions and with the resignation of Pervez Musharraf, it is not clear where the military's loyalty lies. A saving grace for the United States is that many Pakistanis are virulently opposed to the presence of Arab jihadists on Pakistani soil; unfortunately, they are equally virulently opposed to the presence of American forces to eject the foreign fighters.
The real problem for the United States comes not just from the increasing difficulty of the challenge, but the increasing delusion that we have discovered a strategic concept for victory in the concept of "the surge" and a renewed focus on counter-insurgency warfare. The challenge in Afghanistan and Pakistan is not just greater than that in Iraq or the Philippines, it is fundamentally different. It is likely that success in South Asia will require a fundamentally different approach, including a larger role for the international community and non-military elements of statecraft. We need better tools to pressure the Pakistani government to live up to its obligations to control its territory, and ultimately there will need to be a political process in Afghanistan that somehow blunts the momentum of the Taliban. This region needs not just more attention, but more strategic thinking unencumbered by the desire to replicate the past.
Bernard I. Finel, an author, is a senior fellow at the American Security Project.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/sep/26/victory-over-jihadists/
al Qaida is 'minor league team' compared to Hezbollah September 26, 2008 - 6:44am
Ralph Basham says the consquences of failure for Customs could be "catastrophic" for the nation.
J.J. Green, WTOP Radio
WASHINGTON - It's hard to miss the very large photograph of the destroyed World Trade Center hanging in Ralph Basham's spacious office in the Ronald Reagan building.
Basham, the Customs and Border Protection commissioner, who sits a few feet away from the emotionally imposing photograph, is reminded every day of the threat al-Qaida represents. But Basham says there is one threat much more imposing than al-Qaida -- Hezbollah.
"Al-Qaida would be a minor league team when compared to Hezbollah, which has tremendous resources and influence," Basham says. "Yes, it is about al-Qaida, but it's also about the extremists whose mission it is to attack this country."
"Our primary responsibility is keeping bad people and bad things out of the country. If there are bad people and bad things that are in the country that we have allowed in, then we have failed. We have not knowingly or consciously failed, but Hezbollah has tremendous reach, tremendous resources, and they have tremendous financing. It makes them very dangerous."
Despite his concerns, Basham does not know what Hezbollah might be up to.
"I don't think we can sit here and give you a definition of exactly where the threat would come, what the assets are," Basham says.
"If you're asking me, 'Do they have people here in the United States ready to take action?' If we knew the answer to that question, we'd be doing something about it."
He's not alone in his view.
Detection of groups or individuals operating in the shadows has prompted the FBI to ask ordinary citizens to call the agency about the smallest of irregularities.
"I'm not worried about what I know," says Michael J. Heimbach, the newly appointed assistant director for the FBI's Counterterrorism Division.
"I'm worried about what I don't know. So if I have 'X' amounts of cases, I'm pretty comfortable we have them in our radar and we are doing what needs to be done. It's the unknown ones I'm not sure about."
In other words, average citizens who may be hiding in plain sight, living as students or business people pose a significant threat.
"Whether it's an operational role they are playing here, or are they plotting and planning, whether it is material support, or be it financial support to Hamas or Hezbollah, that's the challenge we have," says Heimbach.
He says the plan for the FBI is to "follow the money, following exactly whose hands it's falling into across the ocean. That's one of our concerns. It's high on the radar."
Tracking these groups is tricky because of their varied strategies of attack.
But al-Qaida has left little doubt about one target -- Houston.
"On Sept. 12, an al-Qaida terrorist was quoted as saying that Houston remains in al-Qaida's gun sight, simply because of the oil and gas sector," said Fred Burton, vice president of Counterterrorism at Stratfor, an intelligence company that specializes in geopolitical analysis.
"This is really very rare, when you think about it," Burton added. "Bin Laden himself in the past has talked about Washington and New York, but in essence, you don't get specific cities mentioned a lot. So when you do, especially from a known al-Qaida entity, it's something the Homeland Security folks have to sit up and take note of."
Because of that concern, Basham says Customs has aggressively tried to secure the nation's borders.
"We will either have fences constructed, under construction or under contract along 670 miles by the end of the year," Basham says. "We've put technology at our ports of entry. Almost 100 percent of ports of entry now have radiation portal monitors there, as well as non-intrusive types of inspection equipment. We're putting WHTI (Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative) into place, which no longer allows anyone to make an oral declaration to enter the country."
It is an election year, and many question whether Bush administration officials and those competing to replace them are trying to manipulate the electorate by raising concerns about security or dismissing them.
Basham says Customs has to make sure it stays focused and is not distracted by the political rhetoric that surrounds a change of administration.
But Basham is well aware of what the election season brings in.
"We have seen throughout history that elections, changes of administration are a vulnerable time."
The passing of the torch from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to current Prime Minister Gordon Brown is an example.
"Two days after that change you had two car bombs that were discovered and dismantled in downtown London. A couple days after that, Gatwick airport was attacked by a bomber," says Basham.
Basham also cites the assassination on Pakistani political icon Benhazir Bhutto as another example of the need for U.S. Customs personnel to stay focused.
"They (terrorist organizations) are constantly looking for the soft underbelly," he says.
"It's been seven years since we've been attacked. I constantly remind our people that were are in a high stakes game here, and the consequences of failure are unacceptable. So we have to stay focused on our job of maintaining and securing the borders of this country, and at the same time, insuring that we allow legitimate trade and travel to continue. That's a very, very delicate balance to strike."
"I feel like we're making progress. We've made tremendous strides. We have work yet to do," Basham says.
Are there vulnerabilities?
"Absolutely, there are vulnerabilities."
http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=251&sid=1485600
What are these stupid people thinking? You see the last line, this pervert is a registered sex offender.
Associate pastor arrested on child sex crime charges
11:57 AM EDT on Saturday, September 27, 2008
By NewsChannel 36 Staff E-mail Us: NEWS@WCNC.com
An associate pastor is accused of sex crimes with a child. The Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department's violent criminal apprehension team, known as V-CAT, arrested Lawrence Webber Friday night. The 60-year-old is an associate paster at Reeder Memorial Baptist Church on Beatties Ford Road.
Investigators say they received evidence from two juvenile victims. Webber was arrested on three felony counts of first degree rape and five felony counts of indecent liberties with a child. He is a registered sex offender.
http://www.wcnc.com/news/topstories/stories/wcnc-092608-mk-associate_pastor_arrested_.b938985e.html
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