Psalm 74:20
The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.
JOHN HAMBLETON (1820-1889): Heathenism is cruel. It is not changed in character since the days when parents made their children to pass through fire to Molech, Jeremiah 32:35.
JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): Rome and Greece, in the zenith of their glory, had neither a hospital for the sick, nor an asylum for the poor; they treated their enemies with the most insolent cruelty.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): In ancient Greece, parents were at liberty to abandon their children to perish from cold and hunger―and such exposures were frequently practiced; they passed without punishment or censure. Wars were prosecuted with the utmost ferocity and the Greeks commonly sacrificed their captives at the tombs of their heroes. At Rome, Pompey turned five hundred lions into the arena to battle an equal number of his braves, and “delicate ladies” sat applauding and gloating over the flow of blood. Aged and infirm citizens were banished to an island in the Tiber. Almost two-thirds of the “civilized” world were slaves, their masters having absolute power over them. Human sacrifices were frequently offered on the temple altars. Destruction and misery were commonplace.
J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): But who can wonder? The times might well be dark, when men had not the light of the Bible.
THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): Without the Word, men lie in darkness, whatever learning they have.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Evidence from history shows that God’s Word has imparted the light of civilization, liberty, holiness.
JOHN ANGELL JAMES: What a blessing has Christianity been to the whole world—It has suppressed polygamy, put a stop to the sale of children by their parents, and the abandonment and murder of aged parents, by their children; it has rescued women from their abominable degradation by the other sex, and raised them to their just rank in society; it has sanctified the bond of marriage, checked the licentiousness of divorce, destroyed slavery, mitigated the terrors of war, given new sanction to treaties, introduced milder laws, and more equitable governments; it has taught mercy to enemies and hospitality to strangers—it has made a legal provision for the poor; formed institutions for instructing the ignorant; purified the stream of justice; erected the throne of mercy. “These, O Jesus, are the triumphs and the trophies of your gospel! Which of your enemies—Paganism, Islamism, or Infidelity—has done, or could do the like?”
MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): All the Word of God is light, but especially the gospel.
JOHN ANGELL JAMES: Even avowed and inveterate opponents of the gospel, have been reluctantly compelled to acknowledge its excellence. Voltaire says expressly, “that religion is necessary in every community; the laws are a curb upon open crimes, and religion on those that are private.” “No religion,” says Bolingbroke, “ever appeared in the world, whose natural tendency was so much directed to promote the peace and happiness of mankind, as the Christian religion. The gospel of Christ is one continued lesson of the strictest morality, of justice, benevolence, and universal charity. Supposing Christianity to be a human invention, it is the most amiable and useful invention that ever was imposed upon mankind for their good.” Hume acknowledges, “that disbelief looses in a great measure the ties of morality, and may be supposed, for that reason, pernicious to the peace of civil society.” Rousseau confesses, “that if all were perfect Christians, individuals would do their duty, the people would be obedient to the laws, the rulers just, the magistrates incorrupt, and there would be neither vanity nor luxury in such a state.” Gibbon admits, “that the gospel discouraged suicide, advanced education, checked oppression, promoted the emancipation of slaves, and softened the ferocity of barbarous nations; that fierce nations received at the same time lessons of faith and humanity, and that even in the most corrupt state of Christianity, the barbarians learned justice from the law, and mercy from the gospel.” And yet with such concessions, and after having paid such a tribute of praise to the excellence of Christianity, these miserable men have been so vile and perverse as to conspire for her destruction.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): As the Scripture strongly expresses it, they “rebel against the light,” Job 24:13.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): They hate the light because it robs them of the good opinion they had of themselves, by showing them their sinfulness. This is the “light that shines in a dark place,” 2 Peter 1:19; and a dark place indeed the world would be without the Bible.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): All are immersed in darkness, who do not attend to the light of the Word.
JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): Countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa, where the Gospel was once known, have been for many ages involved in Mohammedan darkness.
JOHN ANGELL JAMES: How completely Islamism has filled its votaries with the most ferocious bigotry and the most merciless intolerance, is known by universal testimony. The spirit of the system is everywhere visible in the absolute despotism of the governments of those countries in which it prevails. Where it is found, the arts and the sciences do not flourish, and liberty withers in its shade—and it is essentially and unalterably cruel.
THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Let us beware how we throw aside our Bibles, or treat them with a fashionable contempt and neglect; which, besides the danger of it to our constitution, must unavoidably be attended with a corruption of manners, widely spreading and increasing in proportion to it. For as there can be no sufficient curb to the inordinate passions of men without religion, so there can be no religion of sufficient authority to influence mankind, without a revelation―nor is there any other real revelation of the will of God beside that contained in the Holy Scriptures―they are the only true supports of true religion in the world.
J. C. RYLE: This is the book on which the well-being of nations has always hinged, and with which the best interests of every nation in Christendom at this moment are inseparably bound up. Just in proportion as the Bible is honoured or not, light or darkness, morality or immorality, true religion or superstition, liberty or despotism, good laws or bad, will be found in a land.
A. W. PINK: Blot the Bible out of existence and what would we know about God’s character, His moral attributes, His attitude toward us, or His demands upon us?
JOSEPH CARYL (1602-1673): The prophet Hosea shows that where there is no knowledge of God in a land, for want of means, there is no truth nor mercy in that land―that is, there is none exercised―but oppression, deceit, and falsehood bear down all, Hosea 4:1. How much more must it be so where there is no knowledge of God in a land because of the contempt of that means, and rebellion against the light?
A. W. TOZER (1897-1963): There are two degrees of darkness, according to our Lord, Matthew 6:23. First, there is the darkness that is absolute―where there has never been any light. That is the darkness of the heathen. But the second is another degree of darkness and more intense―the darkness that follows rejected light. How much more are they prepared for the acting of any wickedness who have thrust the light from them, and are in dark places of their own making?
A. W. PINK: It has ever been true, and still is today, that “the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.”
