ONCE more the closing pages of another volume remind us of a year passing away and address our thoughts to that which live: and abides for ever―even the Word of God. Earthly things have in them the elements of change, corruption, or death; God’s Word endures everlastingly. It is a very great thing fellow Christian, to have for our own that which cannot change, which cannot know corruption, which cannot either wither or die; and we have this in the Word of our God.
The Christian can look at the closing year, and earth’s changing scenes, yes, at death itself, from a standpoint outside them all, for he is born again by the Word of God, and the unseen and the eternal are his, brought home to him by that Word.
Let man, filled with the wisdom of the day, say what he please, let his modern thought, or advanced notions assert themselves as they list, the enduring, the unchangeable, the everlasting, belong to the humble believer of the Word of God.
We trust the few gleams of light from the Old Testament to which our reader’s attention has been directed, may suggest to him to search the Scriptures more and more. The books of Moses abound with gracious illustrations of New Testament truths. When we read God’s Word devoutly and humbly it becomes food to the soul. God may not see fit that we should understand all at once the meaning of His Word, but He will ever by His Spirit comfort and strengthen the humble and prayerful heart by its perusal.
The apostle prayed that the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ might be given to those he addressed, that the eyes of their hearts might be enlightened (see Eph. 1:15-23); and such desires should fill our souls when reading the sacred Word. It is not to be mastered like human knowledge, or learned as science; the Scriptures of God are only to be understood as we are taught of God by His Spirit.
When speaking of the Scriptures, the apostle whom we have quoted, adds, “As new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby; if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” (1 Peter 2:2, 3.) The only way to get on, and to become strong in the things of God, is by feeding on His word. A healthy child has a good appetite, and a healthy state of soul is betokened by a good desire after the truth of the Scriptures.
Our closing words to each Christian reader, are―Make much of the Scriptures.