
R. A. Torrey Articles 10
R. A. Torrey (1856-1928) studied at Yale and in Germany before taking up a pastorate in the United States. As a gifted intellectual, administrator, and Bible teacher, he went on to pastor Moody Church in Chicago and became D. L. Moody's closest associate. In his later years, he travelled the world as an evangelist speaking to millions in Australia, New Zealand, India, England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Japan, China, Hawaii, Germany, the United States, and Canada. Torrey edited the last two volumes of the monumental "The Fundamentals" and was instrumental in the founding of both Moody Bible Institute and BIOLA University.
The Bible is the Word of God: Direct testimony of the Holy Spirit
Ten reasons why I believe the Bible is the Word of God. Tenth, on the ground of the direct testimony of the Holy Spirit We began with God and shall end with God. We began with the testimony of the second person of the Trinity, and shall close with that of the third person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit sets His seal in the soul of every believer to the Divine authority of the Bible. It is possible to get to a place where we need no argument to prove that the Bible is God's Word. Christ says, "My sheep know my voice," and God's children know His voice, and I know that the voice that speaks to me from the pages of that Book is the voice of my Father. You will sometimes meet a pious old lady, who tells you that she knows that the Bible is God's Word, and when you ask her for a reason for bel... Read more
The Bible is the Word of God: Its correlation with knowledge and holiness
Ten reasons why I believe the Bible is the Word of God. Ninth, on the ground of the fact that as we grow in knowledge and holiness we grow toward the Bible. Every thoughtful person when he starts out to study the Bible finds many things with which he does not agree, but as he goes on studying and growing in likeness to God, the nearer he gets to God the nearer he gets to the Bible. The nearer and nearer we get to God's standpoint the less and less becomes the disagreement between us and the Bible. What is the inevitable mathematical conclusion? When we get where God is, we and the Bible will meet. In other words, the Bible was written from God's standpoint. Suppose you are travelling through a forest under the conduct of an experienced and highly recommended guide. You come to a place wher... Read more
The Bible is the Word of God: Inexhaustible depth of the Bible
Ten reasons why I believe the Bible is the Word of God. Eighth, on the ground of the inexhaustible depth of the book. Nothing has been added to it in eighteen hundred years, yet a man like Bunsen, or Neander, cannot exhaust it by the study of a lifetime. George Müller read it through more than one hundred times, and said it was fresher every time he read it. Could that be true of any other book? But more wonderful than this—not only individual men but generations of men for eighteen hundred years have dug into it and given to the world thousands of volumes devoted to its exposition, and they have not reached the bottom of the quarry yet. A book that man produces man can exhaust, but all men together have not been able to get to the bottom of this book. How are you going to account for it?... Read more
The Bible is the Word of God: Influence of the book
Ten reasons why I believe the Bible is the Word of God. Seventh, on the ground of the influence of the book. There is more power in that little book to save men, and purify, gladden and beautify their lives, than in all other literature put together—more power to lift men up to God. A stream never rises higher than its source, and a book that has a power to lift men up to God that no other book has, must have come down from God in a way that no other book was. I have in mind as I write a man who was the most complete victim of strong drink I ever knew; a man of marvellous intellectual gifts, but who had been stupefied and brutalized and demonized by the power of sin, and he was an infidel. At last the light of God shone into his darkened heart, and by the power of that book he has been tra... Read more
The Bible is the Word of God: Character of those who accept/reject the book
Ten reasons why I believe the Bible is the Word of God. Sixth, on the ground of the character of those who accept and of those who reject the book. Two things speak for the divinity of the Bible–the character of those who accept it, and, equally, the character of those who reject it. I do not mean by this that every man who professes to believe the book is better than every man that does not, but show me a man living an unselfish, devoted life, one who without reservation has surrendered himself to do the will of God, and I will show you a man who believes the Bible to be God's Word. On the other hand, show me a man who rejects the Divine authority of that book, and I will show you a man living a life of greed, or lust, or spiritual pride, or self will. Suppose you have a book purporting t... Read more