“THE word of God, which liveth and abideth forever,” is the alone authority for faith; for faith believes God, and rests upon His word because it is His word. It is this that gives reality to souls—the certainty of the truth of Scripture; so that the constant watchword of those who live and walk by faith is, “It is written.” Whatever be the appearance of circumstances, or hover varied the feelings of the believer, he knows that “heaven and earth will pass away, but His words will not pass away.” His heart and mind thus sweetly rest on God’s faithfulness to His own word. He looks to Jesus risen and ascended, and is at peace; for his faith and hope are in God. He knows that He is faithful that promised; that He cannot deny Himself. It is well, then, to distinguish between the opinions and doctrines of men, and the unfailing authority of the written Word. And those who really love souls, and seek to win them for Christ, and to rescue them from the wrath to come, look well to it, that what they set before their hearers is the unalterable word of the Lord. It was so with the apostle Paul. He tells us that his preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but with demonstration of the Spirit, and with power; that their faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. He was jealous lest they should rest in anything short of the word of God. Hence we read of the Thessalonians, who, after hearing Paul’s preaching, shone so brightly, that they received the Word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost. Hence, when the apostle afterward wrote to them he said, “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.” (1 Thessalonians 2:1313For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. (1 Thessalonians 2:13).) How important, then, is it that those who preach should set forth the authority and value of the word of God, and that those who receive it should do so as receiving divine truth! The apostle Paul enjoined Timothy to “preach the word;” and James says, “Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth;” and we know that that Word testifies of Jesus, who “made peace by the blood of His cross.”
It is recorded of a poor cobbler, when he preached in front of a neighbor’s cottage, that he began to read passages from the Bible, but in a tone of belief and depth of pathos which awoke a tender feeling in every villager’s heart.
“I will tell you why,” he said in a trembling voice, “why I read from this book, rather than say any poor words of my own. I was a young man before many of you were born. We had not so many Bibles then as we have now; and in this old valley, which seems old enough to have been made by Noah’s flood, I grew up without any religious instruction. When I hear the gospel now, I think how glad I should have been to have heard it forty years ago.... My first bit of the Bible I got from an old peddler, who treated the few leaves he gave me for a drink of milk with contempt. But after many days I got a whole one for myself. Here it is,” he said with a radiant smile, holding up a well-worn book, “and from that alone I learned to know my need of a Saviour, and to know also that God in His mercy had provided one equal to my need. Oh, dear friends and neighbors, you will need no human teacher, however clever, if you will make that best of books your chief and most prayerful study!”
It was his conviction of the infinite superiority of the word of God to all human teaching that led him, whenever he had an opportunity, to read it to young and old. I have heard him reading it to little children who were waiting to have their boots mended. I have heard him read it to sick and aged men and women, finishing up a chapter or a promise with the simple words, made eloquent by his own deep faith and feeling, “Isn’t that good? Isn’t that grand? And mind, it’s all true.”