The word of God judges, with perfect accuracy, the human heart, and discloses all its most secret springs of thought and action. Indeed, this is one special way in which we may know that it is the word of God. The poor Samaritan woman could say, “Come, see a man that told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?” She judged that a man that could lay bare before her the deep secrets of her heart and of her life, must needs be the long expected Messiah; and she judged rightly. In like manner, we may say, “Come, see a book that told me all things that ever I did: is not this the word of God?” No one can read the heart but God. No book can disclose the human heart but God’s book; wherefore, inasmuch as the Bible doth perfectly disclose the human heart, we may know, even had we no other mode of judging, that the Bible is the word of God.
Such an argument may be utterly contemned by an infidel, a skeptic, or a rationalist, who must, therefore, be met on other grounds; but it is impossible for any upright mind to ponder the simple fact that the Bible perfectly unfolds man’s very nature, his thoughts, his feelings, his desires, his affections, his imaginations, the most secret chambers of his moral being, and not be convinced that the Bible is nothing less than the very word of God, which is “ quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” Heb. 4:1212For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12).
Nor is it, merely, in the word of God, as a whole, that we observe this intense power of “discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart,” but also in detached passages, in brief sentences, in a verse or clause of a verse. Look, for instance, at the three words which appear at the head of this article. What a revelation of the selfishness of the human heart do these words contain! What an expression of the narrow enclosure within which it retires! What a brief, pointed, pithy commentary upon man’s reluctance to be intruded upon, when he has made arrangements for his personal ease! Who can read them, and not see in them a perfect mirror in which the very pulsations of his own heart are reflected? We do not like to be intruded upon, when we have retired, from the scene around us, into the narrow circle of our personal or domestic enjoyment. When we have drawn the curtains, made ready the fire, opened the desk or the book, we do not like to have to respond to a call from without It is at such times, we can enter into the words, “He from within” They really contain a volume of profound moral truth. They graphically and vividly set forth an attitude of heart in which we are all far too frequently to be found. We are all too ready, when a call comes, to send forth our answer “ from within.” We are too prone to say, “Dear me! this is a most untoward moment for that person to call, just when I am so particularly engaged.” All this is precisely the attitude of heart set forth in the words—the selfish words, “He from within.”
And, let us inquire, what answer is sure to be returned from the one who speaks “from within?” Just what might be expected. “Trouble me not.” The man who has retired into the narrow circle of his own personal ease and enjoyment, closed his door, and drawn his curtains around him, does not like to be troubled” by any one. Such an one is sure to say, even though appealed to as a “friend,” “I cannot rise.” And why could he not “rise?” Because “the door was shut, and his children were with him in bed.” In a word, his reasons for not rising were all selfish, and when he did rise, it was only from a selfish desire to avoid further trouble. “Importunity” prevailed over a selfishness which was proof against the appeals of friendship.
How unlike all this was the blessed Lord Jesus Christ! His door was never shut. He never answered “from within.” He ever had a ready response to every needy applicant. He had not time to eat bread, or take rest, so occupied was He with human need. He could say, “I forget to eat my meat,” so entirely was He given up to the service of others. He never murmured on account of the ceaseless intrusion of needy humanity. He kept no record of all he had to do, nor did he ever complain of it. “He went about doing good.” “His meat and his drink were to do the will of him that sent him, and to finish his work.” To Him the poor and the needy, the heavy-laden and the heart-broken, the outcast and the wretched, the homeless and the stranger, the widow and the orphan, the diseased and the desolate, might all flock, in the full assurance of finding in Him a fountain ever flowing over, and sending forth, in all directions, the copious streams of living sympathy, toward every possible form of human need. The door of His heart was always wide open.. He never said to any son of want, or child of sorrow, “I cannot rise and give thee.” He was ready to “arise and go” with every needy applicant, and His gracious word ever was, “Give.”
Such was Jesus when down here; and He is still “the very same, whose glory fills all heaven above” His door stands open, so that the vilest, the guiltiest, and the neediest of sinners are welcome. They can have their crimson and scarlet sins washed away in His atoning blood. They can have pardon and peace, life and righteousness, heaven and its eternal weight of glory, all as the free gift of grace divine; and, while on their way from grace to glory, they can have all the love of His heart and the strength of His shoulder—that heart which told forth its deathless affection on the cross, and that shoulder which shall bear up the pillars of divine government forever.
And, now, Christian reader, suffer the word of exhortation. Remember that Christ is your life, and that Christianity is nothing less than the living exhibition of Christ in your daily walk. Christianity is not a set of opinions to be defended, or a set of ordinances to be observed. It is far more than these. It expresses itself thus, “To me to live is Christ.” This is Christianity. May we know and manifest its power! May we be more occupied with Him who is our life! Then we too shall keep the door of the heart open to the sorrows, the miseries, the wants, and the woes of fallen and suffering humanity. We shall be ready to “rise and give” to every case of real need. If we cannot give “three loaves” or the price of them, we shall, at least, give the look of love, the word of kindness, the tear of sympathy, the accents of fervent intercession; and, in no case, shall we suffer ourselves to get into the attitude of intense selfishness expressed in the words, “He from within.” “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.”