14
Selected Messages Book 1
Men of humble acquirements, possessing but limited capabilities
and opportunities to become conversant in the Scriptures, find in the
living oracles comfort, guidance, counsel, and the plan of salvation
as clear as a sunbeam. No one need be lost for want of knowledge,
unless he is willfully blind.
We thank God that the Bible is prepared for the poor man as well as
for the learned man. It is fitted for all ages and all classes.—
Manuscript
16, 1888
(written at Minneapolis, Minn., in autumn of 1888).
[19]
Objections to the Bible
Human minds vary. The minds of different education and thought
receive different impressions of the same words, and it is difficult for
one mind to give to one of a different temperament, education, and
habits of thought by language exactly the same idea as that which is
clear and distinct in his own mind. Yet to honest men, right-minded
men, he can be so simple and plain as to convey his meaning for all
practical purposes. If the man he communicates with is not honest
and will not want to see and understand the truth, he will turn his
words and language in everything to suit his own purposes. He will
misconstrue his words, play upon his imagination, wrest them from
their true meaning, and then entrench himself in unbelief, claiming
that the sentiments are all wrong.
This is the way my writings are treated by those who wish to mis-
understand and pervert them. They turn the truth of God into a lie. In
the very same way that they treat the writings in my published articles
and in my books, so do skeptics and infidels treat the Bible. They read
it according to their desire to pervert, to misapply, to willfully wrest
the utterances from their true meaning. They declare that the Bible can
prove anything and everything, that every sect proves their doctrines
right, and that the most diverse doctrines are proved from the Bible.
The writers of the Bible had to express their ideas in human lan-
guage. It was written by human men. These men were inspired of the
Holy Spirit. Because of the imperfections of human understanding of
language, or the perversity of the human mind, ingenious in evading
truth, many read and understand the Bible to please themselves. It is
not that the difficulty is in the Bible. Opposing politicians argue points