LISTEN TO THE PROPHETIC WORDS

LESSON BOOK FOR ALL HUMANITY

For the prophecy, came not in old time by the will of man:
but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.2 Peter 1:21.

God committed the preparation of His divinely inspired Word to
finite man. This Word, arranged into books, the Old and New
Testaments is the guidebook to the inhabitants of a fallen world, bequeathed
to them that by studying and obeying the directions, not
one soul would lose its way to heaven.15

The Bible points to God as its author; yet it was written by
human hands; and in the varied style of its different books it presents
the characteristics of the several writers.

The truths revealed are all “given by inspiration of God” (2 Tim. 3:16);
 yet they are expressed in the words of men. The Infinite One by His Holy Spirit has
shed light into the minds and hearts of His servants He has given
 dreams and visions, symbols and figures; and those to whom the
truth was thus revealed, have themselves embodied the thought in
human language.

The Lord speaks to human beings in imperfect speech, in order
that the degenerate senses, the dull, earthly perception, of earthly
beings may comprehend His words. Thus is shown God’s condescension.

He meets fallen human beings where they are. The Bible,
perfect as it is in its simplicity, does not answer to the great ideas of
God; for infinite ideas cannot be perfectly embodied in finite vehicles
of thought. Instead of the expressions of the Bible being exaggerated,
as many people suppose, the strong expressions break
down before the magnificence of the thought, though the penman
selected the most expressive language through which to convey the
truths of higher education.

God designed the Bible to be a lesson-book to all mankind, in
childhood, youth, and manhood, and to be studied through all time.
He gave His Word to men as a revelation of Himself. . . . It is the
medium of communication between God and man.