Delight in the Word


"How miserable it would make me now," says a philosophic writer and thinker once borne along the current of skepticism, "to give up the Bible! How I cling to its assurances of pardon and free acceptance, and undeserved love and favor, as my chief and only hope!"
Go, gather all the philosophers of antiquity—Plato, Socrates, Aristotle. Bring together the wise men of Greece, the philosophers of Alexandria, the sages of Rome. Ask if their combined and collected wisdom ever solved the doubts of one awakened soul, as have done these leaves of this hallowed Book! Which of them ever dried the tear of widowhood as these? Which of them ever smoothed the pillow of the fatherless as these? Which of them ever lit the torch of hope and peace at the dying bed as these, and flashed upon the departing soul visions of unearthly joy?
O Pagan darkness! where was your song in the night? In the region and shadow of death where did your light arise? But "we have a more sure word of prophecy to which we do well to take heed." Let us know it, in our personal and individual experience, as "the engrafted Word, which is able to save our souls" (James 1:21). "Engrafted"—the figure is significant and expressive. The graft in outer nature converts the weak tree, or bush, or stem, into a strong one. It transforms deformity into beauty. It puts, in the place of commonplace blossoms, tints of varied loveliness. The dog-rose of the hedge side, from the pauper of his race, becomes the stock and shoot of a royal line; the unfragrant plant of the thicket is made to swing, from his grafted stalks, new censers of sweetest incense on the passing breeze.
Similar, but infinitely more glorious, is the spiritual transformation effected on the soul by the engrafting of God's holy Word. The influence of its precepts, its promises, its motives, its encouragements, renews and revolutionizes the whole moral being. That soul becomes "a new creation," a "tree of righteousness." In the hands of the Divine Spirit, operating through the Scriptures, the beautiful figurative language of the prophet is illustrated and fulfilled—"Where once there were thorns, cypress trees will grow. Where briers grew, myrtles will sprout up. This miracle will bring great honor to the Lord's name; it will be an everlasting sign of His power and love." Isaiah 55:13
May it be ours, while knowing experimentally this grafting process with its transforming results in "the salvation of our souls"—to value with an ever-increasing estimate the instrumentality by which the new life is generated, and by which it is promoted and sustained. May it be ours to love our Bible through life's morning and midday, so that at the sunset-hour its glorious truths may, like the Alpine summits, be illuminated to our spiritual vision when the valleys are in shadow. Our prop and support amid the checkered scenes of the pilgrimage, may it form our staff in the swellings of Jordan.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

God of my Fathers

Science is doing grand things today. Her beneficent step is heard almost everywhere. But physical science is comparatively young. And you know the characteristic defects of youth. It is headstrong and impatient, and often irreverent.It is sometimes not over reticent, even on matters concerning which it cannot form reliable judgments I now speak on "the claims of the religion of our fathers." 1. It was "our fathers'." That the sires trusted in God is a very sufficient reason why the sons should hesitate, and hesitate long, before they reach the grave conclusion that there is no God, or that if there be He cannot be trusted because He cannot be known. One of the healthiest facts of human nature and of human life has ever been that spirit of reverence for the past which links generation to generation, and practically makes the race one. We Englishmen are by no means destitute of this fine sentiment. 2. Our fathers proved it. What is the testimony borne by honest ...
Read more

The Word of the Lord is tried. The Bible tested and triumphant B. B. Loomis, Ph. D. Look at some of the severe tests to which the Bible has been subjected, and by successfully meeting which it has vindicated its claims to a Divine origin, and to universal human acceptance. I. THE BIBLE HAS STOOD THE TEST OF TIME. Since the Sacred Canon closed, how many and how vast are the changes which have gone on among men. Hardly one of the ancient powers is today extant. How great have been the strides of human progress! Yet the science of salvation, as taught in the Bible, has needed no remodeling. The race does not outgrow the religion of the Bible. Compare the case of the Bible with the poems of Homer. The two works are, in a certain sense, contemporaneous; critics have denied to the Bible any higher inspiration than that of human genius; and Greek poetry held among that ancient people very much the same place as did the sacred Scriptures among the Jews. Three thousand years ago the two works stood before the world on a comparative equality. How stands the case today? Homer is read as a model of epic verse and specimen of old Ionic Greek. The Bible is read everywhere as a transcript of the Eternal. II. THE TEST OF CRITICISM. Criticism, the most searching and severe to which any work has ever been subjected. A criticism often hostile. But the old Book has come out of it only purified. III. THE TEST OF PRACTICAL TRIAL. In the patent office are models of many beautiful machines that could not be worked. The Book will stand every practical test. It gives the solution of the great enigmas of the human soul, and provides the consolation for life's dark hours, those hours of disappointment, adversity, sorrow, and bereavement which come so surely to us all. (B. B. Loomis, Ph. D.)

The Word of the Lord is tried. The Bible tested and triumphant B. B. Loomis, Ph. D. Look at some of the severe tests to which the Bible has been subjected, and by successfully meeting which it has vindicated its claims to a Divine origin, and to universal human acceptance. I. THE BIBLE HAS STOOD THE TEST OF TIME. Since the Sacred Canon closed, how many and how vast are the changes which have gone on among men. Hardly one of the ancient powers is today extant. How great have been the strides of human progress! Yet the science of salvation, as taught in the Bible, has needed no remodeling. The race does not outgrow the religion of the Bible. Compare the case of the Bible with the poems of Homer. The two works are, in a certain sense, contemporaneous; critics have denied to the Bible any higher inspiration than that of human genius; and Greek poetry held among that ancient people very much the same place as did the sacred Scriptures among the Jews. Three thousand years ago the two works s...
Read more