Satan’s Attacks Defeated
OF course Satan tried desperately, over and over again, to block the work upon, and prevent the publishing of, a Reference Bible which he could see was going to mean regrettable inroads upon his domain in human lives. The attacks upon Dr. Scofield’s bodily health were an indication of this; and during the stay at Oxford there were two more serious illnesses. But Satan can go only so far and no farther. The Lord intervened, and each time Dr. Scofield’s health was restored and labors were resumed. When a family problem in America required a cabled call to Mrs. Scofield to leave England for home, both she and her husband found spiritual fellowship and comfort in a little gathering of Plymouth Brethren with whom they had worshipped while in Oxford, and their Christian friends there interceded earnestly in their behalf. The day after special prayer in the meeting of
the Plymouth Brethren concerning this matter,
An brooms Lek
L- Pm E~ Leck
20 10y
GENESIS
(21 16
Abraham What sawest thou that
thou hast done this thing?
11 And Abraham said Because I
thought Surely the “fear of God 1s!
not in this place and they wll slav
me for my wife’s sake.
12 And vet indeed she 1s my sister she ss the daughter of my, father but not the daughter of!
my mother and she became my wife
shalt shew unto me
whither we shall come say of me
He +s my brother
14 And Abimelech took sheep
and oxen and menservants, and
womenservants and gave them
unto Abraham and restored him{
Sarah his wife
Tr
‘9 Pea 199
note
b Miractas
S$ And Abraham was an hundred
years old. when his son Isaac was
jborn unto Ineo
6 And Sarah said God hath made
me-to laugh so fhart all that heas
will laugh onth me
7 And she said Who would have
said wnto Abraham that Sarah
should have given children suck? for
1 have born him a son in his old
age ’
8 And the child grew, and was
weaned and Abraham made a great
feast the same day that Isaac was
weaned
The bondwoman and her sop
cast out (Gal 4 71 1)
9 And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian which she had born unto Abraham, mocking
10 Wherefore she said unto Abra
(¢ meet ct Kana’ 15 And Abimelech said Behold.! OT)!” ham Cast out this bondwoman my land 1s before thee dwell where) ) (Gens 2a and her son for the son of this AV ds, suinicasatiwies ny Maer as Jon 2119 |bondwoman shale be hew withhold 1 have given thy brother al’ 6°42, 23°! my rane nine was oerw: eney thousand preces of silver behold.| 11a (Gen ‘ous in Abrahams sight because of he 1s to thee a covering of the eyes 320.Heb Ibis son 2 unto al) that are with thee. and) ‘’3°? 12-And God said unto Abraham with ail other thus she was re la achsione, Let Wt not be gnevous in thy sight rove *17 So, Abraham praved unto God #346, [Cay nore nt citer Saran and God “healed Abimelech and his’ Jon2110) !hath said unto thee hearken unto ae cond iis ENGL EN EYES andi Gate her woncs for in Isaac shall thy seed ey bare children Sa ibe ca 18 For the LORD had fast closed| p10” 13 And also of the son of the
up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah Abraham’s wile
CHAPTER 2)
The birth of Isaac
ND the Lord visited Sarah as
he had ‘said and th. Lord did
unto Sarah as he had spoken
2 For Sarah ‘conceived and barey
Abraham a son in his old age at
the set time of which God had
spoken to him
3 And Abraham called the name
of his son that was born unto him,
whom ‘Sarah bare to him “Isaac
4 And Abraham circumcised his
son Isaac being eight days old as
God had commanded him
bondwoman will 1 make a nation
becaust he ss thy seed
14 And Abraham rose up early in
the marning. apd. t gag, an,
SSEnIUGICEe MEE AiO
Hagar putting rf on her shoulder
and the child, and sent her away
and she departed and wandered in
the wilderness of Beer -sheba
15 And the water was spent in the
bottle and she cast the child under
one of the shrubs.
16 And she went and sat her
ldown over against him a good way
joff as it were a bowshot for she
Isard Let me not see the death of
the child And she sat over against
lhim and lift vp her voce and
‘Sarah type of grace
See Gen 17 15-19 Gal. 4 22:31
wept
17 And God heard the voice of
“the freewoman ™ and of the “Jerusalem which 1s above *
saac 3s typical in a fourfold way (1) of the Church as composed of the spintua)
chfldren of Abraham (Gal 4 28)
‘
believer as ‘‘born after the Spirit” (Gal 4 29) (2) of Christ as the Son “‘obedient anto death” Gen 22 10, Phil 2. 5-8. (3) of Chnst as the Bridegroom of a called-out bride see Gen 24. also, “Church,” Mt 16 18 and refs). (4) of the new nature of the
Toe eben ae
A page-proof of the New and Improved Edition of the Scofield Reference Bible, showing Dr. Scofield’s corrections and comments.
Dr. Scofield went with his wife to London and Liverpool, whence she started across the Atlantic on a Cunard steamship. After her boat was a day or two out at sea, another cablegram reached her husband, bringing the welcome news from home that the need had passed and all was well.
A wireless message was at once flashed to the outgoing steamer and caught it six hundred miles at sea, so that Mrs. Scofield might have the good news before traveling farther. She was safeguarded all the way in her journey, and thus again an attempted interruption of Satan came to naught.
That summer Dr. Scofield rejoined his wife in America, and together they went on with the work at Lake Orion, Michigan; but he found it difficult to work there in view of the summer conferences at that well-known spot and the many interruptions sure to come to such a man as himself. So it was not long before they were again on their way across the ocean, this time for another and final stay in Switzerland, at Montreux.
It was on this second and last trip to Montreux, lasting eight or nine months, that the work on the Bible was actually finished. This was in the year 1907.
And now came another of those unmistakable attacks by Satan which he plainly hoped would prevent the giving of this work to the world.
The great books that had been slowly growing into finished copy for the printer — containing first the most accurate English Scripture text in existence, around which had been built up, little by little, and with infinite care and painstaking and lavish disregard of time, the results of a generation of personal study and the labors of a multitude of others, — were carefully packed in boxes by a carpenter in Montreux. These boxes were securely fastened by iron bands passing entirely around them, and they looked like the emigrants’ boxes one often sees in the steerage of ocean steamers to be deposited at Ellis Island off New York. Dr. Scofield saw these put aboard the tender carrying baggage to the steamer which lay in the harbor at Boulogne.
The ocean voyage went by uneventfully. The steamer was within one day of New York City when somehow Dr. Scofield felt strongly impressed with the desire to see if his precious boxes were safe in the baggage hold of the steamer.
With one of the steamship officers he went to satisfy himself. The boxes were not there.
With a sinking heart Dr. Scofield realized that the boxes might easily have been left in the tender, on the other side of the Atlantic, and then have been carried back to Boulogne. A new search was carefully made, without result. The baggage men were called in and the boxes were accurately described to them. They said that no such boxes had been put aboard with the luggage on this boat!
Now Dr. Scofield and his wife prayed earnestly together. And then it “occurred” to him that it might be worth while to search among the luggage of the emigrants in that boat. This search was now made, in the steerage, and there the boxes were found, safe and sound.
Notice this: if the boxes had not been looked for and located before the boat had reached New York, they would undoubtedly have been put off at Ellis Island with the luggage belonging to steerage passengers. There they would have been unclaimed, and they might never have been found. For Dr. Scofield, after reaching New York and finding that the boxes were not in the vessel in New York Harbor, would naturally have had Boulogne searched for them, and they would never have been found there. Satan’s
6¢
plans might have succeeded; but he is “an already defeated foe,” and God only awaits our claiming his defeat, in simple faith in the name of Jesus, against every fresh attack that he makes.
When the precious copy for the new Bible was safely in America it was taken to Dr. Scofield’s summer home near Northfield, at Ashuelot, New Hampshire. Here Dr. Scofield and his family were then living in primitive fashion, in tents, with one big tent as their living quarters. One Sunday morning — it was Mrs. Scofield’s birthday — they were in one of the smaller tents when they heard a crackling noise. Hurrying out, they found the big tent a sheet of flames. But the manuscript of the Bible was not in that tent; it was in a little workshop near by. Had the wind been in the opposite direction, the precious manuscript could easily have gone up in smoke. But God was in charge, and again it was saved. It was too late to save the tent, and a great deal else; but Satan’s fresh attempt against the manuscript was defeated.
And now the time was come for actually printing the great work. The type for the Bible was imported from the Clarendon Press in Oxford, England. Dr. and Mrs. Scofield went to New York and took apartments there, to insure close personal supervision of the work.
It was not best to let the big books containing the manuscript go all at once to the printers, so pages were cut from these books, and about twenty pages at a time were sent to the De Vinne Press for composition. As the proofs began to come back, Mrs. Scofield would act as “copyholder” to her husband, she reading aloud from the original copy, he carefully correcting the proof. This, of course, was after the proofreaders of the De Vinne Press had done their own careful work. During one of the hottest of summers, that of 1908, husband and wife toiled through this monumental labor for the Word of God. Their “day” was from about five o’clock in the morning until it was too dark to see at night. But they had long been at school in lessons of patience, and of painstaking, and of persistence.
One day a friend met Dr. Scofield in New York, by appointment, upon another matter, and they went together for a walk on Fifth Avenue. The friend asked concerning the progress of the work on the Reference Bible. Dr. Scofield abruptly came to a full stop in their walk as he said: “At eleven o’clock last night I came
upon those impressive words, ‘The End.’ Yes, the work is finished — that is, in the sense in which any human work can ever be finished; for I am confident that there is only one work ever undertaken upon this earth which has in an absolute sense been finished, to which nothing can ever be added and from which nothing can ever be taken away. That is the finished work of Christ.”:
So the final proof was “‘passed.”” Then the eager waiting for the last sheets to come from the press, go to the binders, and come back the completed product. That day came; and with what gratitude to the Heavenly Father these two children of His handled their first copy of the Scofield Reference Bible, the reader who has followed this story of their God-planned, God-guided, God-illuminated, and God-energized work needs no writer’s help to imagine.