Preached
at the Metropolitan Tabernacle,
"When
thou awakest, it shall talk with thee."—Prov. 6:22.
It is a very happy circumstance when the commandment of our father and the
law of our mother are also the commandment of God and the law of the Lord.
Happy are they who have a double force to draw them to the right—the bonds of
nature, and the cords of grace. They sin with a vengeance who sin both against
a father on earth and the great Father in heaven; and they exhibit a virulence
and a violence of sin who do despite to the tender obligations of childhood, as
well as to the demands of conscience and of God. Solomon, in the passage before
us, evidently speaks of those who find in their parents' law and in God's law
the same thing; and he admonishes such to bind the law of God about their
heart, and to tie it about their neck; by which he intends inward affection and
open avowal. The law of God should be so dear to us, that it should be bound
about the most vital organ of our being, braided about our heart. That which a
man carries in his hand he may forget and lose, that which he wears upon his
person may be torn from him; but that which is bound about his heart will
remain there as long as life remains. We are to love the Word of God with all
our heart, and mind, and soul, and strength; with the full force of our nature
we are to embrace it; all our warmest affections are to be bound up with it.
When the wise man tells us, also, to wear it about our necks, he means that we
are never to be ashamed of it. No blush is to mantle our cheek when we are
mentioned as God-fearing men: we are never to speak with 'bated breath in any
company concerning the things of God. Manfully must we take up our cross;
cheerfully must we avow ourselves to belong to those who have respect unto the
Divine testimonies. Let us count true religion to be our highest ornament; and,
as magistrates put upon them their gold chains, and think themselves adorned
thereby, so let us tie about our neck the commands and the gospel of the Lord
our God.
In order that we may be persuaded so to do, Solomon gives us three telling
reasons. He says that God's law—by which I understand the whole run of
Scripture, and especially the gospel of Jesus Christ—will be a guide to us:
"When thou goest, it shall lead thee." It will be a guardian to us:
"When thou sleepest,"—when thou art defenceless and off thy
guard,—"it shall keep thee." And it shall also be a dear companion to
us: "When thou awakest, it shall talk with thee." Any one of these
three arguments might surely suffice to make us seek a nearer acquaintance with
the sacred Word. We all need a guide, for "it is not in man that
walketh to direct his steps." Left to our own wisdom, we soon excel in
folly. There are dilemmas in all lives where a guide is more precious than a
wedge of gold. The Word of God, as an infallible director for human life,
should be sought unto by us, and it will lead us in the highway of safety.
Equally powerful is the second reason: the Word of God will become the guardian
of our days. "Whoso hearkeneth unto it shall dwell safely, and be quiet
from fear of evil." Unguarded moments there may be; times, inevitable to
our imperfection, there will be, when, unless some other power protect us, we
shall fall into the hands of the foe. Blessed is he who has God's Law so
written on his heart, and wears it so about his neck as armour of proof, that
at all times he is invulnerable, "kept by the power of God through faith
unto salvation."
But I prefer, this morning, to keep to the third reason for loving God's
Word. It is this, that it becomes our sweet companion; " When thou
awakest, it shall talk with thee." The inspired Law of God, which David in
the hundred and nineteenth psalm calls God's testimonies, precepts, statutes,
and the like, is the friend of the righteous. Its essence and marrow is the
gospel of Jesus, the Law-fulfiller, and this also is the special solace of
believers. Of the whole sacred volume it may be said, "When thou awakest,
it shall talk with thee." The Book of books talks with those who
lovingly obey its precepts. The statement is homely; and we rejoice that it is
one whose truth we are all of us able to prove. The Word of God has talked with
us, even with us. I gather four or five thoughts from this expression, and upon
these I will speak.
I. We perceive here that the Word is
living. How else could it be said, "It shall talk with thee"?
A dead book cannot talk, nor can a dumb book speak. It is clearly a living
Book, then, and a speaking Book: "The Word of God, which liveth and
abideth for ever." How many of us have found this to be most certainly
true! A large proportion of human books are long ago dead, and even shrivelled
like Egyptian mummies; the mere course of years has rendered them worthless,
their teaching is dis-proved, and they have no life for us. Entomb them in your
public libraries if you will; but henceforth they will stir no man's pulse, and
warm no man's heart. But this thrice-blessed Book of God, though it has been
extant among men these many hundreds of years, is immortal in its life,
unwithering in its strength. The dew of its youth is still upon it; its speech
still drops as the rain fresh from heaven; its truths are overflowing founts of
ever-fresh consolation. Never book spake like this Book; its voice, being the
voice of God, is powerful and full of majesty.
Whence comes it that the Word of God is living? Is it not, first, because it
is pure truth? Error is death, truth is life. No matter how well
established an error may be by philosophy, or by force of arms, or the current
of human thought, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all untruth
shall be as stubble before the fire. The tooth of time devours all lies.
Falsehoods are soon cut down, and they wither as the green herb. Truth never
dies; it dates its origin from the immortals. Kindled at the source of light,
its flame cannot be quenched; if by persecution it be for a time covered, it
shall blaze forth anew to take reprisals upon its adversaries. Many a
once-venerated system of error now rots in the dead past, among the tombs of
the forgotten; but the truth as it is in Jesus knows no sepulchre, and fears no
funeral; it lives on, and must live while the Eternal fills His throne.
The Word of God is living, because it is the utterance of an immutable,
self-existing God. God doth not speak today what He meant not yesterday,
neither will He to-morrow blot out what He records to-day. When we read a
promise spoken three thousand years ago, it is as fresh as though it fell from
the eternal lips to-day. There are, indeed, no dates to the Divine promises;
they are not of private interpretation, nor to be monopolized by any
generation. We say again, the eternal Word drops from the Almighty's lips as
fresh to-day as when He uttered it to Moses, or to Elias, or spake it by the
tongue of Isaiah or Jeremiah. The Word is always sure, steadfast, and full of
power. It is never out of date. Scripture bubbles up evermore with good
matters; it is an eternal Geyser, or—shall I say?—a spiritual Niagara of grace,
for ever falling, flashing, and flowing on; it is never stagnant, brackish, or
denied, but always clear, crystal, fresh, and refreshing; because it is
evermore the living water.
The Word lives, again, because it enshrines the living heart of Christ.
The heart of Christ is the most living of all existences: it was once pierced
with a spear, but it lives on, and yearns towards sinners, and is as tender and
compassionate as in the days of our Lord's sojourn on earth. Jesus, the
Sinner's Friend, walks in the avenues of Scripture as once He traversed the,
plains and hills of Palestine; you can see Him still, if you have opened eyes,
in the ancient prophecies; you can behold Him more clearly in the four Gospels;
He opens and lays bare His inmost soul to you in the Epistles, and makes you
hear the footsteps of His approaching Advent in the symbols of the Apocalypse.
The living Christ is in the Book; you behold His face almost in every page;
and, consequently, it is a Book that can talk. The Christ of the mount of
benedictions speaks in it still; the God who said, "Let there be
light," gives forth from its pages the same divine fiat; while the
incorruptible truth, which saturated every line and syllable of it when first
it was penned, abides therein in full force, and preserves it from the finger
of decay.
"The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but the Word
of the Lord endureth for ever."
Over and above all this, the Holy Spirit has a peculiar connection with
the Word of God. We know that He works in the ministries of all His
servants whom He hath ordained to preach; but, for the most part, we have
remarked that the work of the Spirit of God in men's hearts is rather in
connection with the texts we quote than with our explanations of them.
"Depend upon it," says a deeply-spiritual writer, "it is God's
Word, not man's comment on it, which saves souls." God does save souls by
our comment, but still it is true that the majority of conversions have been
wrought by the agency of a text of Scripture. It is the Word of God that is
living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword. There must be life
in it, for by it men are born again. As for believers, the Holy Spirit often
sets the Word on a blaze while they are studying it. The letters were at one
time before us as mere letters; but the Holy Ghost suddenly came upon them, and
they spake with tongues. The chapter is lowly as the bush at Horeb, but the
Spirit descends upon it, and lo! it glows with celestial splendour! God appears
in the words, so that we feel like Moses when he put off his shoes from off his
feet, because the place whereon he stood was holy ground. It is true, the mass
of readers understand not this, and look upon the Bible as a common book; but
if they understand it not, at least let them allow the truthfulness of our
assertion, when we declare that, hundreds of times, we have as surely felt the
presence of God in the pages of Scripture as ever Elijah did when he heard the
Lord speaking in a still small voice. The Bible has often appeared to us as the
dwelling of God, and the posts of its doors have moved at the voice of Him that
cried, whose train also has filled the temple. We have been constrained
adoringly to cry, with the seraphim, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of
hosts." The Jews place as a frontispiece to their great Bible the text,
"Surely God is in this place. It is none other than the house of God, and
the very gate of heaven." And they say well. It is, indeed, a spiritual
temple, a most holy house, garnished with precious stones for beauty, and
overlaid within and without with pure gold for truth, having for its chief
glory the presence of the Lord, so gloriously revealed, that oftentimes the
priests of the Lord cannot stand to minister, by reason of the glory of the
Lord which fills the house. God the Holy Spirit vivifies the letter with His
presence, and then it is to us a living Word indeed.
And now, dear brethren, if these things be so—and our experience certifies
them—let us take care how we trifle with the Book which is so instinct with
life. Might not many of you remember your faults this day were we to ask you
whether you are habitual students of Holy Writ? Readers of it I believe you
are; but are you searchers? The blessing is not for those who merely read, but
for those who delight in the law of the Lord, and meditate therein both day and
night. Are you sitting at the feet of Jesus, with His Word as your school-book?
If not, remember, though you may be saved, you lack very much of the blessing
which otherwise you might enjoy. Have you been backsliding? Refresh your soul
by meditating in the divine statutes, and you will say with David, "Thy
Word hath quickened me." Are you faint and weary? Go and talk with this
living Book; it will give you back your energy, and you shall mount again as
with the wings of eagles. But are you unconverted altogether? Then I cannot
direct you to Bible-reading as being the way of salvation, nor speak of it as
though it had any merit in it; but I would, nevertheless, urge upon you
unconverted people great reverence for Scripture, an intimate acquaintance with
its contents, and a frequent perusal of its pages, for it has occurred, ten
thousand times over, that when men have been studying the Word of life, the
Word has brought life to them. "The entrance of Thy Word giveth
light." Like Elisha with the dead child, the Word has stretched itself
upon them, and their dead souls have been made to live. One of the likeliest
places in which to find Christ is in the garden of the Scriptures, for there He
delights to walk. As of old the blind men were wont to sit by the wayside
begging, so that, if Jesus passed by, they might cry to Him, so would I have
you sit down by the wayside of the Holy Scriptures. Hear the promises, listen
to their gracious words—they are the footsteps of the Saviour; and, as you hear
them, may you be led to cry, "Thou Son of David, have mercy upon me!"
Attend most those ministries which preach God's Word most. Do not select those
that are fullest of fine speaking, and that dazzle you with expressions which
are rather ornamental than edifying; but get to a ministry that is full of
God's own Word, and, above all, study God's Word itself. Read it with a desire
to know its meaning, and I am persuaded that, thereby, many of you who are now
far from God will be brought near to Him, and led to a saving faith in Jesus;
for "the Word of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul."
"Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God."
IL As the text says, "When thou awakest, it shall talk -with
thee," then it is clear the Word is
personal. "It shall talk with thee." It is not written,
"It shall speak to the air, and thou shalt hear its voice," but,
"It shall talk with thee." You know exactly what the
expression means. I am not exactly talking with any one of you this morning;
there are too many of you, and I am but one; but, when you are on the road
home, each one will talk with his fellow: then is it truly talk when man
speaks to man. Now, the Word of God has the condescending habit of talking to
men, speaking personally to them; and, herein, I desire to commend the Word of
God to your love. Oh, that you might esteem it very highly for this reason!
"It shall talk with thee," that is to say, God's Word
talks about men, and about modern men; it speaks of ourselves, and of these
latter days, as precisely as if it had only appeared this last week. Some go to
the Word of God with the idea that they shall find historical information about
the ancient ages; and so they will, but that is not the object of the Word.
Others look for facts upon geology, and great attempts have been made either to
bring geology round to Scripture, or Scripture to geology. We may always rest
assured that truth never contradicts itself; but, as nobody as yet can fully
expound geology—for its facts have not yet been compressed into a satisfactory
theory—we will wait till the philosophers settle their own private matters,
being confident that when they find out the truth, it will be quite consistent
with what God has revealed. At any rate, we may leave the sciences to the
scientific. The main teachings of Holy Scripture are about men, about the
Paradise of unfallen manhood, the fall, the degeneracy of the race, and the
means of its redemption. The Book speaks of victims and sacrifices, priests and
washings, and so points us to the divine plan by which man can be elevated from
the fall, and be reconciled to God. Read Scripture through, and you shall find
that its great subject is that which concerns the race as to its most important
interests; and concerns the race, not as Jews or as Gentiles, but as made of
one blood; not as barbarians, or Scythians, or Greek, or bond, or free, but as
men who are called to the feast of grace; and he does not read the Word of God
aright who does not hear it talking to him about things which intimately
concern both himself and his fellows.
It is a book that talks, and that talks personally to us. It deals with things
not in the moon, nor in the planet Jupiter, nor alone in the distant ages long
gone by, nor chiefly of the periods yet to come; but it deals with us,
with the business of to-day—how sin may be to-day forgiven, and our souls
brought at once into union with Christ.
Moreover, this Book is so personal, that it speaks to men in all states
and conditions before God. How it talks to sinners—talks, I say, for it
puts it thus: "Come now, and let us reason together: though your sins be
as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool." It has many very tender expostulations for
sinners. It bows itself to their condition and position. If they will not stoop
to mercy, it shows, as it were, eternal mercy stooping to them. It talks of
feasts of fat things, of fat things full of marrow; and the Book, as it talks,
reasons with men's hunger, and bids them eat and be satisfied. It speaks of
garments woven in the loom of infinite wisdom and love; and so it talks to
man's nakedness, and entreats him to be arrayed in the divine righteousness.
There is no person, in any condition, who may dare say that there is nothing in
the Word of God to suit his case. If thou hast been a persecutor, Saul's
history talks to thee; if thou hast greatly offended, David's repentance
instructs thee; if thou hast been a harlot or a thief, there are special instances
recorded to meet thy case. In all conditions into which the sinner can be cast,
there is a word that is spoken on purpose for him.
And, certainly, when we become the children of God, the Book talks with
us wondrously. In the family of heaven it is "The child's own
Book." We no sooner know our Father than this dear writing comes to us as
a love-letter from the far-off country, signed with our own Father's hand, and
perfumed with His tender love. If we grow in grace, or if we backslide, in
either case Scripture still talks with us. Whatever our position before the
eternal God, the Book seems to be written on purpose to meet that position.
Beloved friends, you will find that it talks to you as you are: it addresses
you not only as you should be, or as others have been, but as you personally
find yourself just now.
Have you never noticed how personal the Book is as to all your states of
mind, in reference to sadness or to joy? There was a time with some of us when
we were very gloomy and sore depressed, and then the Book of Job mourned to the
same dolorous tune. I have turned over the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and
thought that I could have written what Jeremiah wrote. The Book mourns unto us
when we lament. On the other hand, when the soul gets up to the exceeding high
mountains, to the top of Amana and Lebanon, when we behold visions of glory,
and see our Beloved face to face, lo! the Word is at our side, and in the
delightful language of the Psalms, or in the yet sweeter expressions of the
Song of Solomon, it tells us all that is in our heart. It talks to us as a
living friend who has been in the deeps, and has been on the heights, has known
the overwhelmings of affliction, and has rejoiced in the triumphs of delight.
The Word of God is to me my own book. I have no doubt, brother, it is the same
to you. There could not be a Bible that suited me better; it seems
written on purpose for me. Dear sister, have not you often felt, as you have
put your finger on a promise, "Ah, that is my promise; if there were no
other soul, whose tearful eyes would bedew that page, and say, 'It is mine,'
yet I, a poor afflicted one, can do so "? Oh, yes; the book;is divinely
personal; for it goes into minute details of personal experience, let our state
be what it may.
And how very faithful it always is! You never find the Word of God
keeping back that which is profitable to you. Like Nathan, it cries, "Thou
art the man." It never allows our sins to go unrebuked; nor our
backslidings to escape notice till they grow into overt sin. It gives us timely
notice; it cries to us as soon as we begin to go aside. "Awake thou that
sleepest," "Watch and pray," "Keep thine heart with all
diligence," and a thousand other words of warning does it address personally
to each one of us.
I would suggest, before I leave this point, a little self-examination, as a
healthy exercise for each of us. Does the Word of God speak to my soul after
this fashion? Then it is gross folly to lose by generalizations that precious
thing which can only be realized by a personal grasp. How sayest thou, dear
hearer? Dost thou read the Book for thyself, and does the Book speak to
thee? Has it ever condemned thee? Hast thou trembled before the Word of
God? Has it ever pointed thee to Christ, and hast thou looked to Jesus the
incarnate Saviour? Does the Book now seal, as with the witness of the Spirit,
the witness of thine own spirit that thou art born of God? Art thou in the
habit of going to the Book to know thine own condition, to see thine own face
as in a glass? Is it thy family medicine? Is it thy test and tell-tale to let
thee know thy spiritual condition? Oh, do not treat the Book otherwise than
thus, for if thou dealest well with it, and takest it to be thy personal
friend, happy art thou, since God will dwell with the man who is humble and
contrite, and who trembles at His Word. But if thou treatest it as anybody's
book rather than thine own, then beware, lest thou be numbered with the wicked
who despise God's statutes.
III. From the text we learn that Holy Scripture is very familiar. "When
thou awakest, it shall talk with thee." To talk signifies
fellowship, communion, familiarity. It does not say, "It shall preach to
thee." Many persons have a high esteem for the Book; but they look upon it
as though it were some strangely-elevated teacher speaking to them from a lofty
tribunal, while they stand far below. I will not in the least condemn such
reverence, but it were far better if they would understand the familiarity of
God's Word; it does not so much preach to us as talk to us. It is not,
"When thou awakest, it shall lecture thee," or, "it shall scold
thee." No, no," it shall talk with thee." We sit at its
feet, or rather at the feet of Jesus, in the Word, and it comes down to us; it
is familiar with us, as a man talketh to his friend. And here let me remind you
of the delightful familiarity of Scripture in this respect, that it speaks
the language of men. If God had written us a book in His own language, we
could not have comprehended it, or what little we understood would have so
alarmed us, that we should have besought that those words should not be spoken
to us any more; but the Lord, in His Word, often uses language which, though it
be infallibly true in its meaning, is not after the knowledge of God, but
according to the manner of man. I mean this, that the Word uses similes and
analogies of which we may say that they speak humanly, and not according to the
absolute truth as God Himself sees it. As men conversing with babes use their
broken speech, so doth the condescending Word. The Book is not written in the
celestial tongue, but in the patois of this lowland country, condescending
to men of low estate. It feeds us on bread broken down to our capacity,
"food convenient for us." It speaks of God's arm, His hand, His
finger, His wings, and even of His feathers. Now, all this is familiar
picturing, to meet our childish capacities; for the Infinite One is not to be
conceived of as though such similitudes were literal facts. It is an amazing
instance of divine love, that He uses homely parables so that we may be helped
to grasp sublime truths. Let us thank the Lord of the Word for this.
How tenderly Scripture comes down to our simplicity! Suppose the
sacred Volume had all been like the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, small would
have been its service to the generality of mankind. Imagine that the entire
Volume had been as mysterious as the Book of Revelation: it might have been our
duty to study it; but if its benefit depended upon our understanding it, we
should have failed to attain it. But how simple are the Gospels! How plain
these words, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ",!
How deliciously clear those parables about the lost piece of money, the stray
sheep, and the prodigal son! Wherever the Word touches upon vital points, it is
as bright as a sunbeam. Mysteries there are, and profound doctrines deeps where
leviathan can swim; but where it has to do immediately with what concerns us
for eternity, it is so plain that the babe in grace may safely wade in its
refreshing streams. In the gospel narrative the wayfaring man, though a fool,
need not err. It is familiar talk; it is God's great mind brought down
to our littleness, that it may lift us up to His greatness.
How familiar the Book is, too,—I speak now as to my own feelings—as
to all that concerns us! It talks about my flesh, and my corruptions, and
my sins, as only one that knew me could speak. It talks of my trials in the
wisest way. Some I dare not tell, it knows all about. It talks about my
difficulties. Some would sneer at them, and laugh; but this Book sympathizes
with them. It knows my tremblings, my fears, my doubts, and all the storm that
rages within the little world of my nature. This Book has been through all my
experience; somehow or other it maps out all my way, and talks with me as if it
were a fellow-pilgrim. It does not speak to me unpractically, and scold me, and
look down upon me from an awful height of stern perfection, as if it were an
angel, and could not sympathize with fallen men; but, like the Lord whom it
reveals, the Book seems as if it were touched with a feeling of my infirmities,
and had been tempted in all points as I am. Have you not often wondered at the
human utterances of the divine Word? It thunders like God, and yet it weeps
like man. Nothing is too little for the Word of God to notice, or too bitter,
or even too sinful for that Book to overlook. It touches humanity at all
points. Everywhere it is a personal, familiar acquaintance, and seems to say to
itself, "Shall I hide this thing from Abraham my friend?"
And how often the Book has answered inquiries! I have been amazed, in
times of difficulty, to see how plain the oracle is. You have asked friends,
and they could not advise you'; but you have gone to your Bible, and it has
told you. You have questioned, and you have puzzled, and you have tried to
elucidate the problem, and lo! in the chapter read at morning prayer, or in a
passage of Scripture that lay open before you, the direction has been given.
Have we not seen a text, as it were, plume its wings, and fly from the Book
like a seraph, and touch our lips with a live altar-coal? It lay like a
slumbering angel amidst the beds of spices of the sacred Word; but it received
a divine mission, and brought consolation and instruction to your heart.
The Word of God, then, talks with us in the sense of being familiar with us.
Do we understand this? Who, then, that finds God's Word so dear and kind a
friend, would forget or neglect it? If any of you have despised it, what shall
I say to you? If it were a dreary book, written within and without with curses
and lamentations, whose every letter flashed with declarations of vengeance, I
might see some reason why you should neglect it; but, O precious, priceless
companion, dear friend of all my sorrows, making my bed in my sickness, the
light of my darkness, and the joy of my soul, how can I forget thee, how can I
forsake thee? I have heard of one who said that the dust on some men's Bibles
lay there so thick and long that you might write "Damnation"
on it. I am afraid that such is the case with some of you. Mr. Rogers, of
Dedham, on one occasion, after preaching about the preciousness of the Bible,
took it away from the front of the pulpit, and, putting it down behind him,
pictured God as saying, "You do not read the Book; you do not care about
it; I will take it back. You shall not be wearied with it any more." And
then he portrayed the grief of wise men's hearts when they found the blessed
revelation withdrawn from men; and how they would besiege the throne of grace,
day and night, to ask it back. I am sure he spoke the truth. Though we too much
neglect it, yet ought we to prize it beyond all price; for if it were taken
from us, we should have lost our kindest comforter in the hour of need. God
grant us to love the Scriptures more!
IV. Fourthly, and with brevity, our text evidently shows that the Word is responsive. "When thou
awakest, it shall talk with thee," not "to thee."
Now, talk with a man is not all on one side. To talk with a man needs
answering talk from him. You have both of you something to say when you talk
together. It is a conversation to which each one contributes his part. Now,
Scripture is a marvellously conversational book; it talks, and makes men talk.
It is ever ready to respond to us. Suppose you go to the Scriptures in a
certain state of spiritual life: you must have noticed, I think, that the Word
answers to that state. If you are dark and gloomy, it will appear as though it
had put itself in mourning, so that it might lament with you.
When you are on the dunghill, there sits Scripture, with dust and ashes on
its head, weeping side by side with you, and not upbraiding like Job's
miserable comforters. But suppose you come to the Book with gleaming eyes of
joy, you will hear it laugh; it will sing and play to you as with psaltery and
harp; it will bring forth the high-sounding cymbals. Enter its goodly land in a
happy state, and you shall go forth with joy, and be led forth with peace; its
mountains and its hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the
trees of the field shall clap their hands.
As in water the face is reflected, so in the living stream of revealed truth
a man sees his own image.
If you come to Holy Scripture with growth in grace, and with aspirations for
yet higher attainments, the Book grows with you, and grows upon you. It is also
ever beyond you, cheerily cries, "Higher yet! Excelsior!" Many books
in my library are now behind and beneath me; I read them, years ago, with
considerable pleasure; I have read them since, with disappointment; I shall
never read them again, for they are of no service to me. They were good in
their way once, and so were the clothes I wore when I was ten years old; but I
have outgrown them. I know more than these books know, and know wherein they
are faulty. Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the Book widens and deepens with
our years. It is true, it cannot really grow, for it is perfect; but it does so
to our apprehension. The deeper you dig into Scripture, the more you find that
it is a great mine of truth. The beginner learns four or five points of
orthodoxy, and says, "I understand the gospel, I have grasped all the
truth." Wait a bit, and when his soul grows and knows more of Christ, he
will confess, "Thy commandment is exceeding broad; I have only begun to
understand it."
There is one thing about God's Word which shows its responsiveness to us,
and that is, when you reveal your heart to it, it reveals its heart to you.
If, as you read the Word, you say, "O blessed truth, thou art indeed
realized in my experience; come thou still further into my heart; I give up my
prejudices, I assign myself, like the wax, to be stamped with thy
seal;"—when you do that, and open your heart to Scripture, Scripture will
open its heart to you; for it has secrets which it does not tell to the casual
reader, it has precious things of the everlasting hills which can only be
discovered by miners who know how to dig and open the secret places, and
penetrate great veins of everlasting riches. Give thyself up to the Bible, and
the Bible will give itself up to thee. Be candid with it, and honest with thy
soul, and the Scripture will take down its golden key, and open one door after
another, and show to thy astonished gaze ingots of silver which thou couldst
not weigh, and heaps of gold which thou couldst not measure. Happy is that man
who, in talking with the Bible, tells it all his heart, and learns the secret
of the Lord which is with them that fear Him.
And how, too, if you love the Bible, and talk out your love to it, the
Bible will love you! Its wisdom says, "I love them that love me."
Embrace the Word of God, and the Word of God embraces you at once. When you
prize its every letter, then it smiles upon you graciously, greets you with
many welcomes, and treats you as an honoured guest. I am always sorry to be on
bad terms with the Bible, for then I must be on bad terms with God. Whenever my
creed does not square with God's Word, I think it is time to mould my creed
into another form. As for God's words, they must not be touched with hammer or
axe. Oh, the chiselling and cutting and hammering in certain commentaries to
make God's Bible orthodox and systematic! How much better to leave it alone!
The Word is right, and we are wrong, wherein we agree not with it. The
teachings of God's Word are infallible, and must be reverenced as such. Now,
when you love it so well that you would not alter a single line of it, and
prize it so much that you would even die for the defence of one of its truths,
then it is dear to you, and you will be dear to it. It will henceforth unfold
itself to you as it does not to the world.
Dear brethren and sisters, I must leave this point, but it shall be with
this remark—Do you talk to God? Does God talk to you? Does your heart go up to
heaven, and does His Word come fresh from heaven to your soul? If not, you do
not know the experience of the living child of God, and I earnestly pray that
you may. May you this day be brought to see Christ Jesus in the Word, to see a
crucified Saviour there, and to put your trust in Him, and then, from this day
forward, the Word will echo to your heart, it will respond to your emotions!
V. Lastly, Scripture is influential. That I gather from the fact that
Solomon says, "When thou awakest, it shall talk with thee," and
follows it up with the remark that it keeps man from the strange woman, and
from other sins which he goes on to mention. When the Word of God talks with
us, it influences us. All talk influences more or less. I believe there is more
done in this world for good or bad by talking than there is by preaching;
indeed, the preacher preaches best when he talks. No oratory in the world
surpasses natural talk; it is the model of eloquence, and all your
rhetorician's action and verbiage are so much artificial rubbish. The most
efficient way of preaching is simply talking; the man permitting his heart to
run over at his lips into other men's hearts. Now, this sacred Book, as it
talks with us, influences us, and it does so in many ways. It soothes our
sorrows, and encourages us. Many a. warrior has been ready to steal away
from God's battle; but the Word has laid its hand on him, and said, "Stand
on thy feet; be not discouraged; be of good cheer; I will help thee; yea, I
will strengthen thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of My
righteousness." Brave saints we have heard of; but we little know how often
they would have been arrant cowards, only the good Word came to them, and
strengthened them, and they went back to the fight stronger than lions and
swifter than eagles.
While the Book thus soothes and cheers, it has a wonderfully quickening
power. Have you never felt it put fresh life-blood into you? You have
upbraided your own slackness, and said, "How can I bear to live at such a
dying rate as this in which I have too long continued? I must press forward at
a faster rate." The Word has put wings to your heels, and spurs to your
sides. Read that part of the Word which tells of the agonies of your Master,
and you will feel—
"Now for the love I bear His name,
What was my gain I count my loss;
My former pride I call my shame,
And nail my glory to His cross."
Read of the glories of heaven which this Book reveals, and you will feel
that you must run the race with quickened speed, because a crown so bright is
glittering in your view. Nothing can so lift a man above the gross
considerations of carnal gain, or human applause, as to have his soul saturated
with the Spirit of truth, with which Holy Scripture is filled. It elevates as
well as cheers.
Then, too, how often it warns and restrains/ I had gone to the right
or to the left if the law of the Lord had not said, "Let thine eyes look
right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee." This is the
storm-signal which bids us keep in port since tempests await incautious
mariners.
This Book's consecrated talk sanctifies and moulds the mind into the
image of Christ. You cannot expect to grow in grace if you do not read the
Scriptures. If you are not familiar with the Word, you cannot expect to become
like Him that spake it. Our experience is, as it were, the potter's wheel on
which we revolve; and the hand of God is in the Scriptures to mould us after
the fashion and image which He intends to bring us to. Be much with the holy
Word of God, and you will be holy. Be much with the silly novels of the day,
and the foolish trifles of the hour, and you will degenerate into vapid wasters
of your time; but be much with the solid teaching of God's Word, and you will
become solid and substantial men and women. Drink in the Word, and feed upon
it, and you shall be conformed to that whereon you feed, and the world shall
stand astonished at you.
Lastly, let the Scripture talk with you, and it will confirm and settle
you. We hear every now and then of apostates from the gospel. They must
have been little taught in the truth as it is in Jesus. A great outcry is made,
every now and then, about our all being perverted to Rome. A good man lately
assured me, with a great deal of alarm, that all England would be subdued by
Popery. I told him I did not know what kind of God he worshipped, but my God
was much greater than the devil, and did not intend to let Satan have his way
in this land of the martyrs and of the Bible. I am not half as much afraid of
the pope at Rome as of the Ritualists and Rationalists at home. But mark you,
there was some truth in my friend's fear. There will be a going over to one
form of error or another, unless there be in the Christian Church a more
honest, industrious, and general reading of Holy Scripture. What if I were to
say that many even among Church members do not search the Scriptures: should I
be slandering them? You hear on the Sabbath day a chapter read, and you perhaps
read a passage at family prayer; but you do not search the Bible privately and
regularly. Is it not so? Too many take their religion out of the monthly
magazine, or accept it from the minister's lips. Oh, for the Berean spirit back
again, to "search the Scriptures "to see if these things be so! I
would like to see a huge pile of all the books, good and bad, that were ever
written by men—yes, prayer-books, sermons, hymn-books, and all—consumed in one
flame, if the reading of those books should be keeping you away from reading
the Bible. A ton weight of human literature is not worth an ounce of Scripture.
One single drop of the essential tincture of the Word of God is better than a
sea full of our commentings and sermonizings. We must live upon the pure,
infallible Word of God if we are to become strong against error, and tenacious
of truth. Brethren, may you be established in the faith, rooted, grounded,
built up in it! But I know you cannot be except you search the Scriptures
continually.
The time is coming when we shall all fall asleep in death. Oh, how blessed
it will be to find, when we awake, that the Word of God will talk with us then,
and will renew its ancient friendship! Then the promise which we loved before
shall be fulfilled; the charming intimations of a blessed future shall be all
realized; and the face of Christ, whom we saw as through a glass darkly, shall
be all uncovered, and He shall shine upon us as the sun in its strength. God
grant us to love the Word, and feed thereon, that we may live to the glory of
God all our days! Amen.
—Messages to the Multitude