TREASURE HARDLY TOUCHED
The story I heard as a boy said she lived in poverty out in the
Scottish highlands. Her son had gone to America and gotten very rich, so they
said. Neighbors wondered why she was so impoverished if her son was so rich.
“Does he not send you money?” they wanted to know. I don’t know what he
response was to that but I suppose she brushed it off somehow—mothers do that,
don’t they?
She said he sent her nice pictures. She took down the family
Bible and scattered throughout it were scores of ten, fifty and hundred dollar
bills. Her Bible was full of treasure and this isolated and elderly lady didn't
recognize the foreign money.
Hard to believe? Maybe. Multiplied millions in the world don't
know the treasure they have in their Bibles. For a thousand reasons people
ignore it and their lives are narrower because of it. The Bible's not an
ordinary book and you can be infinitely richer if you'll allow it to tell you
its message.
Can There Really Be Treasure?
How's it possible that an ancient book can matter that much to
modern men? What does it have that makes it the most influential book in the
world? (Even the Islamic world reveres large portions of the Bible!) How do you
explain the fact that down through the ages those who sought to enslave others
have burned Bibles and outlawed the reading of it? Why did these governments go
to the trouble to suppress the Scriptures? Why do countless thousands in every
age ask for it to be read at their marriages and at their funerals?
The Power & Beauty of the Bible
Robert Evans met an old man in bombed-out Warsaw at the close of
World War II, who, all his life had owned and cherished one page of the Bible.
He wasn't sure it was from the Bible. "I have read this page again and
again all my life," he told Evans. "I thought it was from the Bible,
but I was never sure. There's something different about it—this I know. But
I've always wondered what comes on the next page." And he wept as Evans
let him handle, for the first time in his life, an entire Bible, page by page.
How do you explain all this? The Bible is precious and down the centuries has
gained a wonderful and an ennobling power over wistful hearts.
Of course the Bible has its occasional critics. (Can you
remember any of their names?) But when you easily dismiss something as
acclaimed as Shakespeare's plays, you're saying more about yourself than
Shakespeare. Those who tell us they regard Beethoven or Mozart as rubbish don't
impress us as qualified critics.
But maybe the Bible gets more criticism because of its
"friends" than its critics. Some say they think it's precious but
aren't nearly as thrilled about it as students of Shakespeare, Homer or
Dostoievski are about those authors. Some say they revere it and find it deeply
satisfying but spend no time delving into it. Thoughtful unbelievers note all
this and wonder.
None of this is the fault of the Bible. It can't be right to
dismiss Dvorak or Bach as trivial because some musician we know butchers their
work. We can't be doing right to dismiss the work of Shakespeare or Goethe
because some actor makes an awful mess of their material. And it can't be right
to dismiss the Bible because its friends represent it pathetically. Hmm, well,
maybe preachers….Never mind.
It's to the Bible's everlasting credit that despite its critics
and its "friends" it remains the foremost book in all the world,
generation after generation. Others feel the need to protect their holy book
from criticism so they forbid even the translation of it. Enlightened
Bible-believers have no such fears. The Bible, somebody said, is like an anvil
and its critics are like hammers. The hammers wear out while the anvil remains.
As long as there are people in darkness who need light, people in suffering who
need comfort, people in despair who need hope, people who are lost and need to
be found, people in bondage who need to be freed—as long as such people exist
the Bible will be around and in demand!
The Nature of the Bible's Treasure
The Bible is glorious literature, don’t you know.
It's right to say the Bible is glorious literature! It's right to remind people
that all the noted writers from the earliest ages until now confess their debt
to the Bible. Shakespeare, Hugo, Tolstoy, Dickens, Cervantes, Tennyson,
Browning, Goethe and a host of others openly confessed their debt to the Bible.
The themes with which they dealt, the themes that made their works live on
and on, they had in common with the Bible. That's all true and it's right to
say it--but it isn't enough to say that! The Bible is more than inspiring and
glorious literature. It isn't Shakespeare or Tennyson people want to hear as
they lie on or sit by deathbeds speechless with grief. In their millions they
ask for the Holy Bible. Why is that?
The Bible promotes and defends all that mankind in its better
moments cherishes and calls for. Imagine how the world would be transformed if
it wakened one morning with the Bible supreme in everyone's life! Imagine how
the world would be if everyone joyously believed Psalm 23 or John 3:16-17 or
took Matt 7:12 and 22:36-40 to heart!
Imagine the opposite to be true! Suppose the world wakened one
morning to the sure and certain knowledge that the Bible was a tissue of
lies and errors! Worship would die—immediately! Prayer would be universally
abandoned, it would be heard never again on the lips of children or in the hush
of great sorrows. Hope would be snuffed out of life and the witness of
multiplied millions of God-fearing people against oppression and evil would be
silenced. Their restraining power against vice would crumble into ruins and the
bereaved would weep tears without comfort. When the last Bible was thrown out
with the rubbish, the last hymn would be sung, the last missionary would be
recalled and the last sermon of comfort and challenge would be preached. The world
would have died and the church buildings would have become tombstones marking
out God's grave! The glory and power of the Bible could only be fully
appreciated if we saw the horror of a world convinced it was lies and
fallacies. But the Bible's treasure is richer even than this!
The Bible is and brings us the true word from God that he wants
to live in loving fellowship with all mankind! There's the crowning message of
the Bible! That's what makes the heart surge!
The Bible confronts our sad and narrow little lives with the
picture of our startling possibilities! For our own eternal benefit it exposes
our awful sinfulness and our profound need of God who will save us and bless us
with life! It tells the amazing story of a God who bears his own judgment against
Sin that he might offer eternal friendship to Man. It speaks of a God who
shares our suffering until that day when suffering will end. It gives meaning
to our living and glorious hope when we are dying!
It calls us to join with Jesus Christ in the most fantastic of all
adventures, the rescue of the world. It shows us how to live with our
weaknesses without being proud of them, how to fail without being crushed
beyond repair, how to trust in spite of appearances. It brings us God's
approval when we act nobly and God's forgiveness when we try and fail. It won't
allow us to fritter away our lives with trivia. It calls us from a thousand
scattered little loyalties to one grand "I must!"
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