Journal: Grace Journal
Volume: GJ 07:1 (Winter 1966)
Article: Lives Transformed: An Evidence of Authority
Author: Donald H. Launstein

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GJ 7:1 (Wtr 66) p. 9

Lives Transformed:
An Evidence of Authority

Donald H. Launstein

Director, Christian Service Department
Southeastern Bible College

“And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man” (Luke 17:26). With these words and in this context Jesus Christ warned of the apostasy which should prevail in this world as His coming draws near. It appears that the basic manifestation of this apostasy in Noah’s day was man’s adamant refusal to listen to the Word of God. God warned Noah: “My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years” (Gen 6:3). God is here extending a period of beckoning grace. However, even though Noah preached grace for one hundred and twenty years, his hearers reacted as if God were not speaking. This is the very reaction so prevalent today. The proclamation of an infallible Word falls on deaf ears while men doubt and deny that it is the Word of God.

As it was in the day of Noah, so today man stands at the crossroads. But God has placed at this crossroads an authoritative signpost which implores one and all, “This is the way, walk ye in it” (Isa 30:21). However, it is to be expected that Satan, the enemy of men’s souls, will attempt to influence the decision of the wayfarer at this crossroads. He may not be able to remove the signpost, but he does his best to raise questions concerning its authority. Young succinctly states this as follows:

If, therefore, the Church today takes the wrong turning and finds herself in the land of despair and doubt, she has not harkened to the Guidebook, but has allowed herself to be deceived by signposts with which her enemy has tampered.1

The decisions and battles of the day are won or lost in direct relation to what a man thinks about the Word of God. If the Bible is the divinely inspired, infallible Word of God then it is the authority and not the man who studies it. This is the issue that confronts men today. Young declares:

There is, however, one battleground in particular where the fighting is raging and the battle must be fought to a finish…. it has to do with the very nature of the Bible itself. What is the Bible? That is the great question.2

If there was ever a day in which men desperately need to come to grips with the reality of the authority of the Word of God, it is today. But how is this to be realized? It must be

GJ 7:1 (Wtr 66) ...

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