Throughout all ages Satan has sought to destroy the souls of men. In the garden of Eden he tried to make Eve believe that God did not mean what He said (See Gen. 3:1-5.) Satan succeeded in his foul plot and the fall of the race was the result. Since that day Satan has been using the same subtle scheme in trying to make men believe that God does not mean what He says, and during these last days he is making a great success of this awful delusion.
“Higher Criticism” is the name commonly given to this last method of attack upon the Word of God. The higher critics treat the Bible as a human book. Carried to its, logical conclusion, their position is summed up in these words, “What we cannot understand or explain by our reason, we reject.” They place their reason on the judge’s bench, and everything must be according to their opinion or it must be denied. In other words, whatever human reason cannot fathom, they reject with disdain. Not all of them go to this logical extreme, but they are all headed in the same direction, namely, the denial of the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, Such men forget that human wisdom always leads away from God (Rom. 1:22; 1 Cor. 1:18-24).
The acceptance of this method of dealing with God’s Word has led to widely spread unbelief in the Bible, and as a result an awful apostasy from the faith. Many dear Christian souls have been perplexed and have been thrown into doubt and bewilderment in regard to the matter, by the rank utterances and denials of those who profess to be the preachers and teachers of God’s. Word, But the child of God has no need to be troubled or in doubt, for the Spirit of God knew and told us of all this nineteen centuries ago. (See 2 Tim. 3:1-5; 1 Tim. 4:1-2; 2 Tim. 4:2-4.)
The Colleges, Universities, and Theological Seminaries are almost without exception in the hands of these higher critics. As a result terrible havoc is being wrought in the lives of the young men and women who have gone under their teaching. We have seen some who, when they entered college, believed the Word of God and professed to be followers of Christ, but when they finished their course under some who are ordained preachers in one of the so called orthodox denominational schools, they were rank infidels, denying the Word and the Lord. Here is a sample of their teaching. One professor, an ordained orthodox (?) preacher in one of the largest Protestant denominations said that the story of Adam and Eve was an old grandmother’s tale, handed down by our ancestors to explain the origin of the human race and that somehow it was put into the Bible. He also stated that the Hebrews got the ten commandments from the code of an old heathen king, “Hammurabi.”
How lame such explanations are when put alongside of the precious inspired Word of the Living God. Paul says, “Sin entered into the world by one man” and “Death reigned from Adam to Moses.” (See Rom. 5:12-19). If the story of Adam and Eve is an old grandmother’s tale, then Paul was untrue in his statement, and thus the Word of God is made of none effect. But, “Let God be true and every man a liar.” The falsehoods of men must give way before God’s truth. “The Word of the Lord endureth forever.”
The terrible thing about these deceptions is that they are being sugar-coated and fed to the children in the Sunday Schools through the use of the S. S. Quarterlies, most of which are tainted with errors from beginning to end. One of the most awful errors is the widespread denial of the necessity for Christ’s death on the cross. The blood is denied as the means of salvation, and salvation by character building and works is the accepted way among these deniers of the faith. (See 1 Peter 1:18-19; Heb. 9:22.)
Our high school and public school teachers are also gradually joining, the ranks of these deniers of inspiration. In securing their own professional preparation, the teachers are all thrown more or less in contact with these unsound teachings in the colleges. The text books, too, are being poisoned in a covert way with the same unbelief. It is the rare thing, then, to have a young person get through even a high school education without being more or less tainted with this doctrine of doubts. If he goes on to finish the regular college course, the chances are that he or she will come out at the end thoroughly saturated with unbelief. When once the Word of, God is given up by a soul, that person is in a terrible condition, for he has thrown over the only thing that God can use to bring conviction of sin, and saving faith in Christ.
Parents cannot be too careful in guarding their children from these Satanic delusions.
Would not any Godly parent rather see his child go through life with an eighth grade education, and happy in his soul, than to see him rise, in the world through a university education, fatally blinded in his, soul by the poison of higher criticism?
Thank God that in these last days of departure from the faith, the true child of God has a refuge. In view of just this condition of things the apostle Paul said, “And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the Word of His grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.” (See Acts 20:29-32.)